The Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) is a new organization being founded by over 50 academic libraries to promote and support library publishing initiatives. As library publishing matures as a field, LPC aims to build a community of practice, aligning local/institutional efforts and facilitating inter-institutional collaboration. 

The LPC's distributed team of librarians, representing a wide range of institutions, is working together to design and build an organization that responds directly to the expressed needs of this community in areas such as training and professional development, networking and knowledge sharing, practical research, and advocacy. The project emerged from conversations between Purdue University, University of North Texas, Virginia Tech, and the Educopia Institute, about the need for centralized leadership in this emerging and increasingly important area. 

Over the course of the two-year project period (January 2013 – December 2014), and beyond, the LPC will engage the community to explore a range of issues, including technology solutions (publishing platforms, preservation, access and discovery) and business and sustainability models (including Open Access).This presentation will focus specifically on the ways in which the LPC is assessing and addressing critical needs in these two areas. We will report from the field on the challenges of implementing library publishing services and how LPC will facilitate innovation through sharing experiences, knowledge, and resources across institutions. The presentation will draw from the results of our 2013 survey of library publishing services, including statistics about the technologies, services, and revenue streams reported across a broad range of libraries. We will identify trends in library publishing models, discuss future directions, and suggest areas for new research and planning.