Library Publishing Services: An Emerging Role for Research Libraries

Surveys and interviews of members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) have revealed that a majority are now developing publishing services. Publishing centered in research institutions has a long history. Departments, institutes and other campus publishing have complemented university press publishing, collectively producing a wide range of high-quality works. Research libraries are positioned to transform university publishing as they create organized publishing services.

Libraries launch publishing services in response to needs for new kinds of support for scholarly publications. Services focus on the local constituency, although much of the content they are publishing comes from outside the institution. Journal publishing is the most common genre supported, although a majority of programs also support monographic publishing.

This session will characterize developing services and consider the scale and scope of library publishing programs as well as their potential impact on scholarly publishing broadly. The origins and motivations underlying this new role will be explored. It will look at the resource models that support publishing services with the community’s expectations of how those resource models might evolve over time.

Presentation (PPT)