What Are Libraries Doing as Publishers?

Library publishing is the set of activities led by college and university libraries to support the creation, dissemination, and curation of scholarly, creative, and/or educational works.

Generally, library publishing:

requires a production process;
presents original work not previously made available;
and applies a level of certification to the content published, whether through peer review or extension of the institutional brand.

Based on core library values and building on the traditional skills of librarians, it is distinguished from other publishing fields by a preference for Open Access dissemination and a willingness to embrace informal and experimental forms of scholarly communication and to challenge the status quo.