ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Consumers as producers

By Helen MacLam

Social Science Subject Editor Choice

A report on the International Group of Publishing Libraries.

Although comparatively few in number, libraries with publishing programs occupy a significant, if special, niche in the publishing community. Mainly research facilities, these libraries maybe privately funded, such as the Huntington Library; they maybe affiliated with a university; or they may be national institutions, such as the Library of Congress or the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague. Theirpublications range from major research tools to postcards.

The International Group of Publishing Libraries grew out of a 1983 seminar of library publishing held at the British Library. Representatives from about thirty institutions in the U.S., U.K., and Western Europe gathered to share ideas and expertise hard won from their experiences as publishers. The IGPL, which remains an informal group rather than a formal organization, meets biennially to share experiences and explore the possibilities of active collaboration among research libraries operating publishingprograms.

Library publishing has a long if not widely known history. David Way (the British Library) indicates that the Bodleian Library, Oxford, issued its first catalog in 1605, and the first volume of the British Museum’s Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts (to which volumes are still being added) came out in 1843. Way further states that “Today several libraries operate publishing programs on a scale extensive enough to qualify them as mediumsized publishers: for example, the National Library of Australia and the British Library each issues well over fifty titles a year.”¹

In this country, the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library are major publishers. LC brought out its first title, a book list, in 1801, and now publishes about thirty titles a year. NYPL has produced a variety of materials, among them, monographs, facsimiles, bibliographies, and exhibition catalogs. According to Richard Newman, director of publications, the NYPL publishing program has been revitalized in the last fewyears, issuing works that extend from the very scholarly to the very popular, and which reflect holdings from all parts of the library, including the branches. Newman stated that the NYPL has gone a long way in surmounting the financial problems that previously hampered its program.

This past June the International Group of Publishing Libraries conference was held in Edinburgh, hosted jointly by the N ational Library of Scotland and Edinburgh University Library. The conference was in fact more of a working session, with free exchange on the issues generated by presentations.

In his discussion of library publishing policy, Peter Freshwater (Edinburgh University Library) began by stating objectives that pretty well summarized the goals of IGPL members as a whole: to publicize the collections and services of the library and to promote their use as resources for learning, teaching, and research; to generate income for the library; and to exploit material in the library’s collections in order to achieve these objectives. Freshwater also remarked that publication is a conservation measure that gives access to closed collections.

All of the objectives were implicit components of the conference presentations, as were the issues of marketing and distribution, and the physical aspects of production.

A major ongoing concern is preservation, specifically, the need for use of alkaline paper. Gwynneth Evans reported that the National Library of Canada is experimenting with acid-free paper for its parliamentary publications. David Way said the British Library used alkaline paper for the majority of its reference publications and is beginning to use it for other books. There was consensus among U.K. librarians on the importance of cooperating to develop the use of acid-free paper.

Other sessions treated the role of libraries as publishers of scholarly journals (Clive Field, John Rylands University Library of Manchester; Guilland Sutherland, Huntington Library); microform publishing contracts (Kenneth Carpenter, Harvard); and production technology. A brief discussion of copublishing and outside publishing highlighted what Dana Pratt, director of publishing, Library of Congress, had previously referred to as the “OPM factor,” i.e., use of other people’s money.² These alternatives have also been used successfully by other library publishers, e.g., the New York Public Library.

At a general session open to non-IGPL members, problems of small-scale publishing were addressed by Alison Harley of the Scottish Publishers Association, an organization of about 65 members. Harley identified key problems as sales, marketing, and distribution, saying that a good sales rep is critical because most of the Association’s sales are made through bookstores. Andrew Miller (Glasgow District Libraries) related the phenomenal success of one of their publications, Michael Munro’s The Patter, a scholarly yet hilarious dictionary of Glaswegian speech guaranteed to appeal to Scots and anyone of Scottish descent worldwide.

The final presentations covered two other means of promoting collections and generating revenue: bookshops and exhibitions. Jane Carr (the British Library) described the search for a site for the library’s bookstore. Several external sites were examined but none was satisfactory. Ultimately, the shop was located in the Grenville Library, opposite the British Museum stores. Although the shop offers a mix of products, Carr believes it could succeed just selling books. Colin Wight (the British Library) said the store sold many reference books, handbooks, and thesauri. He confirmed the value of accepting credit cards: 15% of the store’s sales are paid by VISA; 7 % by Mastercard/Access. Ruth Ann Stewart (Library of Congress) reported on the successful opening of LC’s new store, which sells a mix of books, gift items, folk art, juvenalia, and stationary products.

Nigel Thorp (Glasgow University Library) recounted details of the exhibition The Glory of the Page, consisting of Renaissance and illuminated manuscripts from the Glasgow University Library. From initial planning to actual production the exhibition took nearly five years. Thorp personally supervised packing and unpacking at each exhibition site, driving a truck across Canada and North America (an adventure itself worthy of a book).

IGPL will next meet in 1991 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The conference will be cosponsored by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Historical Society. As Jane Carr put it, “The issues have been raised; now solutions must be explored.”

Notes

1. David Way, “Publishing in Libraries.” Scholarly Publishing 20, no. 1 (October 1988), 35.
2. David Way, ed., Library Publishing (London: British Library Occasional Papers, no. 2,1985), 45.