One of the aspects of librarianship that I have spent some time thinking about is the growing tendency for libraries to act as publishers. No longer are libraries storehouses for knowledge, where the librarians act as curators and guides. Instead they have started to move in content creation.
It may seem that this is only happening in larger academic libraries, but smaller public libraries are also becoming publishers. Many now are publishing content in the form of social media platforms. But even more importantly small public libraries, especially in New Zealand, are at the fore of enabling communities to publish their stories. Kete Horowhenua being the most high profile example of such digital publishing leadership.
In my role at Victoria my brief is primarily around publishing. Whether it is digitising our content to upload onto one of our various platforms, or talking to other areas of the University about how to get their content up and out there. We are now looking at installing the Open Journal Systems software on our infrastructure to allow faculty to publish their journals in a open digital manner.
This has made me aware that in some ways I am becoming more of a publisher than a librarian. I might have to look into the publishing societies and their professional organisations.
I have a book coming out in a few months (it’s going through editorial review right now), from Information Today Inc., addressing precisely this: Public libraries “enabling communities to publish their stories.” More specifically, how libraries can help users publish family stories and other micropublications–books likely to yield a total of 2 to 500 copies–using tools they already have and no new costs, and with professional-quality results. Called The Librarian’s Guide to Micropublishing, it also discusses smaller academic libraries as publishers.
Nearly all of the publishing I have seen has been in the digital arena, however I imagine as the cost of print-on-demand technologies become cheaper and more widely used, the library publishing physical books as well should become more common.