Editor’s note: As much as we love the searchable online interface for the Library Publishing Directory, it doesn’t include the introduction found in the print, PDF, and EPUB versions. Each year, the Directory‘s introduction includes a ‘state of the field’ based on that year’s data that highlights trends and new developments in library publishing as reported by the programs that contribute their information. To make it easier to find, we are republishing that portion of the introduction here.
By the LPC Directory Committee
Key Findings/Overview
In recognition of the Library Publishing Directory’s 10 year anniversary, we took this opportunity to look back at the first Directory from 2014 and to highlight some of the trends and developments we identified in the data from 2014 to 2024.
In this year’s edition of the Directory, we received responses from 179 publishers in 18 countries, and 167 long-form responses are featured in the Directory. The number of respondents has grown gradually since the first Library Publishing Directory in 2014, when 116 library publishers completed the survey. We also see a much higher number in the unique institutions that have participated in the last decade: in the Directory‘s lifetime 383 library programs have responded to the call for entries. Most respondents (92%) represent academic libraries, which is consistent with previous years. Of the remaining respondents, 5% identified their institution type as consortia, 1% as member organizations, and 2% as other.
The survey itself has grown and changed over the years, beginning with just two main sections, Overview and Publishing Activities, in 2014. By 2024 it has grown to include sections on each publishing program’s organization and oversight, partnerships, technologies and services, program highlights, and most recently, policies.
The information we wanted as a community in the first half of the Directory’s life focused on what services to offer, what technologies balance functionality and sustainability, and the quantity of resources, human or otherwise, to dedicate to these efforts. More recently, the community is asking questions about managing existing services, formalizing policies, working in collaboration within and outside of our institutions, and sustaining the people that make all this happen.
In comparing the 2014 and 2024 survey results, we identified a number of positive trends in terms of staffing, technology use, geographic diversity, and publishing program expansion and stability. These positive trends are highlighted here and explained in more detail in the relevant sections below:
- The Directory has become much more geographically diverse, with publishers from 18 countries contributing in 2024 compared to 5 countries in 2014.
- The median age of respondents’ programs has increased 100% from 7 years to 14 years, even as dozens of newly established programs have contributed to the Directory. For example, 53 of the 2024 respondents’ programs did not yet exist when the first Directory was published.
- In 2014, 61% of respondents were using a proprietary platform for at least one of their publishing initiatives. In 2024, however, less than half (47%) of respondents were using a proprietary platform.
- Staffing at library publishers has increased 33% from a median of 1.5 FTE in 2014 to 2 FTE in 2024.
- A typical library publisher added one service between 2014 and 2024, with a median of 10 services offered in 2024 compared to 9 in 2014. The number of possible services identified by the survey increased significantly (29%) over the decade, from 24 to 31.
- Although services increased in multiple areas, the reported provision of traditional library services such as cataloging and metadata decreased by over 10%.
Program Information
This year, 166 respondents (93%) reported when their program was established, with establishment dates from 1950 to 2023. Programs had a median age of 14 years, equivalent to being established in 2010 (average age 14.5 years). The year 2008 was the single year with the most reported program establishments, with 14 programs established.
Looking at program establishment by decade, 12 programs (7%) were established prior to 2000, 62 programs (35%) were established between 2000 and 2009, and 72 programs (40%) were established between 2010 and 2019. The remaining 19 respondents (11%) reported programs that were established since the beginning of 2020.
From the 2014 Directory, 112 respondents (97%) reported their year of establishment. Those respondents reported their programs being established between 1988 and 2013, with a median reported age of seven years (equivalent to founding in 2007). Several of the oldest programs included in the 2024 Directory (five established before 1980) did not respond to the first Directory survey but are represented in the 2024 data.
The increasing median age of respondents’ programs by seven years–a 100% increase–over the previous decade is promising for the longevity for library publishing programs, especially considering the continuous establishment of new, younger programs. For example, 53 of the 2024 respondents’ programs did not yet exist when the first Directory was published.
In 2024, 72% of respondents reported the maturity of their program as established, down from 73% in 2023. Of the remaining respondents, 23% reported their program stage as early, and 2% as being in the pilot stage.
Open access continues to be a priority for most respondents in 2024.The majority of respondents (86%) identified open access as central to their mission, up slightly from 84% of respondents in 2023.
Initially, programs were not asked to provide information about maturity or open access priorities. However, around 80% of mission statements submitted to the 2014 Directory featured mentions of “open.”
In contrast, this year’s submitted mission statements mentioned “open” 205 times in 179 entries. The Directory questions specifically about open access were added in 2018, when the questions “How central is open access to your publishing program’s mission?” and “What portion of your publications is open access?” were added.
General Demographics
Respondents represent institutions from 18 countries. Slightly over half (56%) were from the United States; no more than 10% of respondents came from any one other country. More than 80% of respondents were from primarily English-speaking countries (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand). One hundred and eighteen respondents (66%) were from North America, and 46 (26%) were from Europe. Germany had the most respondents from a non-English-speaking country (7%). Every continent, with the exception of Antarctica, had at least one respondent.
In this year’s survey, 162 respondents (91%) indicated which language(s) they publish material in. All respondents who answered this question published some material in English. Almost half of respondents (48%) only published material in English, and seven (4%) indicated that they mostly publish in English but have some publications in or are open to publishing in other languages.
Outside of English, respondents reported publishing in 38 specific languages. Additionally, five respondents listed “others,” the number of languages they published (e.g., “over 140”), or the types of languages they published (e.g., “Slavic”), which would encompass additional unspecified languages.
After English, the most commonly published languages were Spanish (17%), French (13%), and German (10%). This is unsurprising given the geography of the respondents—Spanish is an important minority language in the United States, French is an official language in Canada, and Germany had more respondents than other non-English-speaking countries.
A handful of respondents reported publishing in endangered indigenous languages, for example, Cree, Ojibwe/Anishinaabemowin, Chickasaw/Chikashanompa’, Mayan languages, and Welsh.
The 2014 Directory survey did not ask respondents to answer questions about their location or languages published, but location information can be determined using the names of respondents’ institutions. In 2014, respondents came from five countries: the United States (81%), Canada (13%), Australia (4%), China (specifically Hong Kong, 1%), and Germany (1%).
Compared to 2014, the current version of the Directory is much more geographically diverse. The first edition of the Directory had a heavy skew towards American respondents (over 80%) and an even stronger skew towards respondents from primarily English-speaking countries (98%). Each year since the start of the partnership between LPC and IFLA has seen a growth in the number of responses from institutions outside the United States. Although the 2024 Directory still leans heavily towards programs based in English-speaking countries, there is better representation of non-English-speaking countries, and programs of the United States now comprise only a slight majority of respondents. Representation of the Global South, while still relatively low, has also improved, with some respondents based in Africa and South America, which were not represented in the inaugural Directory.
Staffing
Over the 11 years of Directory data collection and publishing, staffing numbers have remained relatively consistent, with a marginal increase in FTE resources dedicated to library publishing over time. While in 2014 the median FTE of staff allocated to library publishing was 1.5 FTE, that number has since risen. In 2024, 156 respondents reported a median of 2 FTE.
While there isn’t Directory data comparing professional to paraprofessional staffing levels available for all years, the data that is available signals an increase in paraprofessional staff to support publishing programs over the last six years. In 2018, respondents reporting on staffing levels noted an average of 1.56 FTE paraprofessional staff, compared to 2.7 FTE in 2021 and 2022.
The marginal increase in staffing levels across the 11 years of Directory data is accompanied, however, by an exponential increase in publishing levels across Directory respondents. For example, what started as 391 faculty journals published across 115 responding institutions in 2014 grew to 604 faculty journals across 159 institutions. What started as 174 student-driven journal titles in 2014 has now grown to 240 across reporting institutions. In addition, the services provided by library publishers also increased, as is explored below.
Services
There was a 29% increase in additional services options identified as of interest in the Directory between the 2014 survey and the 2024 survey. Survey respondents were given a choice of 24 services options to choose from in 2014, compared to 31 options in 2024. A free form “Other” text box was available in 2014, which generated quite a large number of additional services offered. This “Other” option, as well as a “Notification of A&I sources” option, were no longer available by the 2024 survey. Eight new services appeared on the 2024 survey and included applying for CIP data, data visualization, developmental and/or substantive editing, DOI distribution, image services, indexing services, ISBN registry, and print-on-demand.
In 2024, the library publishers offered a median of 10 services, compared to a median of 9 services in 2014. The largest increase in additional services offered by libraries were in the areas of DOI assignment/allocation of identifiers (43%), author advisory – other (28%), and ISSN registration (18%). The largest decrease in additional services offered by libraries were in the areas of digitization (−27%), metadata (−17%), cataloging (−16%), graphic design (print or web) (−16%), open URL support (−16%), and outreach (−16%). Interestingly, the services that decreased the most would be considered the more “traditional” functions of a library. There could be many reasons why the Directory data shows these decreases, such as the further specialization of library publishers.
In 2014, over 50% of libraries offered the following services: metadata (82%), author copyright advisory (74%), digitization (74%), training (65%), cataloging (64%), hosting of supplemental content (61%), and analytics (59%). Comparatively, in 2024 over 50% of libraries offered the following services: DOI assignment/allocation of identifiers (83%), author copyright advisory (74%), metadata (65%), author advisory – other (61%), training (59%), and ISSN registration (56%).
Technology & Software
Developments in platform and software usage since 2014 are indicative of library publishers’ sustained commitment to innovation, open source, open data, and open educational resources. In 2014, the largest percentage of respondents (43%) used Open Journal Systems (OJS), and other popular platforms included bepress (34%), DSpace (33%), and CONTENTdm (22%). In the 2024 responses, we note library publishers’ continued preference for OJS (49%), DSpace (31%), WordPress (25%), and bepress (21%). We also note the rise of newer, innovative open source platforms like Pressbooks, Janeway, Scalar, Manifold, PubPub, and Mukurtu. On the other hand, platforms like CONTENTdm and Fedora have decreased in popularity. We also note a shift from proprietary publishing platforms to open source platforms. In 2014, 61% of respondents were using a proprietary platform for at least one of their publishing initiatives. Now, in 2024, less than half (47%) of respondents were using a proprietary platform for at least one of their publishing initiatives.
Changes in the Directory since 2014 reflect the increasing centrality of open research data and Open Educational Resources in library publishing efforts. The 2014 survey simply asked if libraries are publishing “textbooks” of any kind, and only 10% of respondents indicated that they were. Open Educational Resources are only mentioned twice in the published 2014 Directory. It wasn’t until 2020 that the survey asked about “Educational Resources,” and by then OERs were among the most frequently mentioned content types in the Directory. The 2022 survey added a separate question about how many OERs programs were publishing, and in 2023 the content type list was updated to ask about “Open Educational Resources” specifically. By then over 50% of respondent institutions were publishing OERs. The growing importance of OER work is also reflected in the development of Pressbooks as a leading OER platform. Although Pressbooks was not even listed in 2014, by 2023, it was the second most commonly used platform in the responses.
Directory data indicates that library publishing and other academy and administrative efforts to promote the importance of making research data openly available have made some progress. In 2014, half of the respondents were publishing research data, but that number had only increased by 8% (to 58%) by 2024. However, the options for publishing research data have grown considerably since 2014. While libraries have long used institutional repository platforms for data publishing, the 2024 results demonstrate that data-focused platforms like Dataverse, figshare, and Samvera are growing in popularity. None of these platforms made the list in 2014. Off-the-shelf data repositories are an emergent tool, suggesting there may be opportunities to significantly ramp up our open data efforts in the coming years.
Conclusion
The 10 year anniversary of the Library Publishing Coalition and 11th edition of the Directory has given us a good opportunity to look at the evolution of the survey and Directory itself.
Library publishing and the Directory have seen significant growth over the past decade. Programs continue to be established, more titles are being published, and the Directory has seen increased representation from across the globe. Additionally, the range of services provided and dedication to open access, including the use of open-source platforms and software, has grown among the library publishing community. FTE employment at library publishers has also grown over the previous decade, but it does appear that the growth in both the variety and number of services offered is outpacing this growth in staffing.
Future analysis may compare participation in the Directory over the years to identify the ratios of regular, intermittent, and single-time responders, and to explore what the Directory can say about the stability of individual programs and the library publishing movement overall.
In moving to a biennial publication, the hope is that the Directory Committee can take more time in between editions to perform data analysis and work closely with the community to shape the future direction of the survey. For example, the survey could be refined to better represent consortia in the Directory.
The change in publication schedule also allows the Library Publishing Coalition to issue more detailed surveys on topics of high interest to the community while trying to avoid overwhelming members with requests. To start, the Staffing Survey Task Force is preparing to gather data on the staffing models used by library publishers.
We look forward to continuing to produce and improve the Directory with the input and participation of this vibrant community. Many thanks to all libraries who contributed to this year’s edition of the Directory, and we hope to see another decade of growth in our important field.