The second Independent Publisher and Librarian Forum—IndieLib for short—was held on April 16 in downtown Manhattan, at New York University’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy. The event brought together public and academic librarians, representatives from indie publishers and their distributors, and others across the field to learn more about one another’s work and concerns and imagine new ways to move forward.

IndieLib, a collaboration between the Independent Publishers Caucus (IPC) and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), grew out of a single question at a 2023 presentation given by Micah May, DPLA director of ebook services, for a webinar on library ebook distribution hosted by IPC. The conversation had turned to the lack of substantial dialogue between libraries and independent publishers, and one participant wondered why there wasn’t the equivalent of the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute—a national conference for booksellers, authors, and publishers—for libraries. “We just decided to run with it,” said May.

May and IPC Executive Director Daniel O’Brien rallied their respective forces, gathered additional partners and sponsors, secured a venue, and created an engaging lineup. IndieLib debuted in 2024 on the day before the Public Library Association (PLA) conference opened in Columbus, OH. Over the course of the day, librarians and small publishers discussed shared values and challenges, digging into ebook licensing issues and the need to keep channels of communication open on both sides.

BRIDGING THE DISCONNECT

This year’s conference covered somewhat different ground, starting off with an industry overview of what sales and collection development look like for both parties, moving on to marketing and measuring impact, and winding up with a series of lively breakout discussions. A fast-pitch breakfast before the proceedings began invited a handful of publishers—including Archipelago Books, Beacon Press, Bellevue Literary Press, Europa Editions, Feminist Press, Grove Atlantic, Princeton University Press, Seven Stories Press, and Transit Books—to spotlight upcoming titles.

But the emphasis was the same: bringing together two parts of the acquisitions ecosystem that haven’t had enough opportunities to learn, in depth, about the other’s work, and giving them the chance to exchange information, talk shop, and network.

The opening panel, “Speaking Each Other’s Language: An Industry Overview,” brought together Stephanie Anderson, assistant director of selection at New York Public Library (NYPL) and Brooklyn Public Library’s (BPL) BookOps distribution center; Peter Brantley, director of online strategy at the University of California–Davis Library; and Dan Simon, founder and publisher of Seven Stories Press; along with moderator Carolyn Morris, vice president of Ingram Library Services, to talk about what, exactly, they do. The conversation moved from the brass tacks of selection and distribution timelines to ever-growing demands for digital content and the longing for perpetual access.

“After the Acquisition: The Marketing Potential of Libraries” panel; l.-r.: Jenny Choy, Juli Meinz, Kristin Morgan, and Joanne Tombrakos Photo by Daniel O’Brien

“After the Acquisition: The Marketing Potential of Libraries,” featured Juli Meinz, BPL reader services coordinator; Kristin Morgan, coordinator of adult collections at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; and marketing consultant Joanne Tombrakos in conversation with moderator Jenny Choy, marketing director at Lee and Low Books, about publicity, discovery, and promotion on both sides of the library/indie publisher equation. While libraries want to build programs around new and popular titles, all agreed, independent presses have strong backlists that can be mined for events. Planners plumb every resource from BiblioCommons lists to Instagram to book awards, and small press authors need to be proactive about marketing themselves on multiple platforms.

Following a rough timeline from production through discovery to assessment, “Defining Impact: Sustainable Models for Measuring Success” brought Alyssa Hassan, Beacon Press associate director of marketing, and Kasia Kowalska, NYPL director of strategy and public impact, together with moderator Colleen Morsli, Urban Libraries Council chief of staff. The takeaway: simple metrics, such as library visits, circulation, program attendance, and cardholders don’t provide a complete picture of who reads what and where individual titles need to go to reach the people who want them. Branches in higher-income areas, for example, privilege holds-based and electronic borrowing, which can skew numbers for popular titles that need to be part of collections in underserved locations. Prioritizing return on investment (ROI) alone means placing bestsellers and well-circulating genres where people already read them; prioritizing equity calls for sending popular items to lower-income, browsing-based locations, which in turn affects circ numbers because of the lack of holds. There’s no simple solution, panelists and audience members agreed—both sides need to keep talking.

Why don’t libraries and independent publishers sit down together more often for this kind of information exchange? Much of the disconnect, according to May, comes down to resources: small publishers generally don’t have a role dedicated to engaging and interacting with libraries. They mainly work through third-party distribution systems, putting them at an additional remove.

“Last year I was really struck at how many independent publishers weren’t necessarily aware how their books were being offered—what was the model, what’s the price point?” he said—an understandable knowledge gap, given constrained resources. “If you’re opting into a large number of distribution channels through a third-party distributor, you might not scrutinize that. You might just say, I’m going throw it all out there and just focus on making the books.”

The flip side of that is true as well, May added. Libraries don’t buy directly from publishers, so they’re often not aware of how for-profit distributors arrived at the pricing and licensing terms they’re presented with.

NEXT STOP, MINNEAPOLIS

Despite the more regional, east coast flavor of IndieLib 2025—the pilot conference attracted attendees from across the country already en route to PLA—it attracted nearly as many as the first, with about 90 registrants. Good buzz about the 2024 event also helped, as did a robust range of sponsors, who covered the majority of the conference’s costs (it was free to librarians and the media), including Ingram Content Group, Kirkus Reviews , Publishers Weekly, LibraryReads, Blackstone Audio, DeMarque distributors, and Library Futures, which donated the space.

Plans for IndieLib 2026 are in the works for Minneapolis, which will be hosting PLA. The organizers hope, once again, to get a national pool of participants; one challenge will be attracting academic librarians, who were a valuable part of this year’s conversation, to a public library conference.

The conversation will likely turn to the digital space again, given increasingly pressing questions about licensing models, access, and privacy. “I think we need to make space for that as often as possible,” said O’Brien. “It’s tricky because it’s always changing. But that’s one of the benefits of what this space can do if we can keep it going. That conversation can evolve as we evolve.”

At the inaugural IndieLib, “it was evident to me how aligned indie publishers and libraries are, much more so than I had realized going in,” said May. “There’s been some antipathy between libraries and publishers over the last years about the high cost of licensing and sometimes ebooks not even being available to libraries. This conference, and this exchange with indie publishers, has helped me realize that…most publishers are quite eager to work with libraries. Independent publishers, by and large, have been extremely friendly to libraries and very eager to come up with models that work for them.”