IU Bloomington Libraries Publishing

Indiana University Bloomington Libraries Publishing is a free, high-quality, open-access publishing service for IU. We publish texts created by the IU community that are not publishable by scholarly or commercial presses but that are nonetheless worthy of the affordances of a publisher. 

This service is overseen by Adam Mazel, Digital Publishing Librarian. 

Publications

book cover of Through the Looking Glass: I. Why Cross-Fertilize? written by Curt Lively and Illustrated by Zoe Michelle Dinges featuring image of red queen chess piece with two snails crawling on it
Written by Curt Lively; Illustrated by Zoe Michelle Dinges

Book on the evolutionary problem of sexual reproduction

Book cover of Heather Akou's Afterthought: A Family Story depicting two women (one blurred) standing in front of houses
By Heather Akou

Historical fiction book about the difficult life of a working-class woman in Wisconsin in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

A drawing of the Rose Well House, constructed in 1908 and named for its benefactor, Theodore Rose, class of 1875. Located in Dunn’s Woods near Owen Hall and Wylie Hall.
Written by James H. Capshew; Illustrated by Joe Lee
Making Indiana University: History, Landscape, and a Sense of Place [Forthcoming 2025]

Essays exploring institutional culture, campus design, and sense of place at Indiana University Bloomington.

Your publishing service helped me in many ways. You did heroic work to make my book accessible and made many suggestions about how to increase the educational element. I am very grateful for your efforts, and I am glad that I signed on with you.

Curt Lively, Distinguished Professor, Biology, IU Bloomington

What We Publish

Genres include:

  • Books
    • non-fiction (monographs, edited collections, memoirs, etc.)
      • This includes campus works and scholarship for a public audience.
    • fiction (novels, short stories, poetry, etc.)
  • Companions (Digital projects that accompany and extend traditional print publications)
  • Conference Proceedings

Of particular interest are texts that use digital affordances, such as:

  • Multimedia (text, images, audio, video, animations, etc.)
  • Interactivity
  • Code & Data / Data Analysis / Data Visualization

Who We Publish

We publish texts created by members of the IU community free of charge:

  • Faculty
  • Staff
  • Students
  • Departments
  • Centers
  • Schools
  • Etc.

How We Publish

Our publishing platforms are:

  • Quarto, a cutting-edge, free and open-source publishing system that produces high-quality digital publications in almost any format.
  • IU's Pressbooks, an open source publishing system for creating books that produces high-quality digital publications in multiple formats

We publish in multiple formats to facilitate access and accessibility:

  • HTML (left) for web access, machine readability, and reflowable text
  • EPUB for eReaders, accessibility by the disabled, and reflowable text
  • PDF for physical / paper copies
  • Print (Optional) for physical / paper copies 

What We Provide

  • Design (including Cover/Book Jacket)
  • Copyright and Licensing Advice & Assessment
  • Copyediting
  • Digital and Physical (Print-on-Demand) Publishing
  • Accessibility
  • Discoverability
  • Bibliometrics
  • Preservation
  • Publicity
  • & More!

Why Publish with Us

Author Rights: Our authors retain their copyright and can republish their documents elsewhere.

Free for Readers: Our publications are Open Access: available to readers worldwide for free without cost or copyright restrictions.

Free for Authors: Our publications cost authors $0. There are no processing charges or publication fees.

IU Branding: Our publications are certified with the IU imprint and logo.

Multiformat Publishing: Your content is published in multiple formats to broaden access and accessibility.

Low-Barrier Publishing: We publish any manuscript that meets our criteria. We welcome works for readerships of any size and / or that may not meet the financial requirements for publication by traditional presses.

Digital Media: Unlike print publications, our publications can include dynamic and interactive media (video, audio, data visualizations, etc.).

Bibliometrics: Our publications are indexed by Google Scholar and reader counts are provided by Google Analytics.

View the Global Reach of our Publications