LJ Coverage of the IndieLib Summit

Thank you to Jane Friedman of LIbrary Journal for the article “The First of Many Conversations: Librarians and Independent Publishers Come Together at IndieLib 2024.” It is, as the title aptly suggests, a report of the IndieLib Summit, where independent publishers and librarians met the better to “communicate and tackle shared challenges. These days, those challenges are numerous and include powerful corporations that dominate the business, ongoing attacks on the freedom to read, and the ever-present dilemma of discoverability.” [Full disclosure: members of the ReadersFirst Working Group were instrumental in the planning of and participated in the summit].

RF encourages a full reading of the article and so will not summarize here, but note especially Friedman’s summary of keynote speaker Rebecca Giblin’s comments. Giblin identifies well many of the issues we face in trying to get a more sustainable library digital content market. The summit was about more than just digital, but we stick to a digital focus here because of RF’s raison d'être.

Freidman concludes “One of the hallmarks of a successful relationship is presenting a united front to the world. If all goes well, the attendees of IndieLib will continue the conversation together, in a productive—and less star-crossed—way.” This is indeed only the first IndieLib. Plans are being made for a follow up. Greater visibility in the library market can help smaller publishers, while they may be able to offer better terms to libraries struggling under unsustainable Big 5 costs.

I come away with one major concern. Until this conference, I had no idea how many of the smaller publishers have their digital content distributed through the Big 5. They simply cannot distribute them on their own for fiscal reasons. When these publishers ask the Big 5 distributors to allow variable licenses, often at less costs, they are invariably told no, it simply isn’t possible. The restrictive and high-cost Big 5 licenses must be used. Not possible? Really? Hmm. Sounds bogus. What, the technology doesn’t allow it? I call BS. It’s because they don’t want to, and we mustn’t exempt the library vendor industry leader from the part it may well also help play in restricting access. I’m not yet sure how we are going to do it, but we MUST find an alternative way for high-quality and interesting works to come to libraries outside the Big 5 digital distribution “chokepoint.” Until we can, we shall be stuck. This problem will be one focus of discussion in future IndieLibs.