Lulu.com Acquisitions Trial
In 2008 the Library began trialling the acquisition of items distributed via Lulu.com. Lulu is an online publishing and printing company which was established in 2002 by Bob Young, the co-founder of Fortune 500 company, Red Hat. Although Lulu’s is based in North Carolina, United States of America, its online nature has ensured the company’s global reach. It has 1.8 million members in more than 80 countries, and revenue and registrations are soaring.
Lulu describes itself as a ‘digital marketplace’ rather than a publisher. Members upload and format their creations using the Lulu service and then sell them from the Lulu storefront. Lulu provides services for photo-books, calendars, magazines, brochures and digital content such as e-books and ringtones, however the conventional book is still its primary product. Authors can choose whether to print the book in paperback or hardback, as well as printing options such as size, binding, layout and cover art.
Trial aims
The acquisition trial is part of the Library’s strategy to engage with the online publishing and print-on-demand (POD) industry. While there are a handful of such services in Australia, Lulu.com is a popular choice for many Australian authors. The Library has always collected publications by self-publishers, and since self-publishing increasingly takes place online the trial is timely and necessary for us to explore issues which we would not otherwise encounter in the traditional acquisitions processes using well established library suppliers.
All of Lulu’s 35 subject categories are searched using relevant keywords, and items by Australian authors or with Australian content are identified. Since Lulu members can choose between a self-publishing and a ‘Published By Lulu’ service, publications that are self-published by Australian authors are subject to legal deposit and the authors contacted. All items ‘Published By Lulu’ are assessed against the Collection Development Policy and purchased from Lulu as appropriate.
Challenges
The trial has already raised some interesting challenges for Library. For example, because Lulu is a (POD) service it keeps no inventory, and instead order items are placed in a queue at a contracted printer. Items from an order might be printed at many separate locations according to that item’s size or description and once printed an item is immediately shipped out. Libraries are not yet Lulu’s usual clientele and sometimes it is quite difficult to get Lulu to understand our purchasing requirements and concerns.
Selection of items can also be resource intensive since it is conducted on an item-by-item basis. This is because Lulu is a publishing service rather than a book supplier. Furthermore, Lulu’s interface and search tools do not allow us to easily generate lists of items which might be suitable for purchase. And because Lulu keeps member costs low by limiting the support it offers, it can be difficult to obtain assistance or resolve issues promptly.
Outcomes so far
To date the Library has purchased 288 items from Lulu.com and claimed another 143 on legal deposit from Australian authors. A huge breadth of subjects has been collected, most commonly from authors of whom we were previously unaware. And although still in its early stages the trial has already highlighted how the business models and processes of online publishing and POD companies can radically diverge from those of traditional suppliers. As the number and influence of such companies grow this may be a divergence which we need to adapt to if we wish to acquire items efficiently and effectively. This trial has helped us to identify these issues and, it is an important step for us as we continue to chase these Australian materials down the long tail of online publishing.
Alex Naunton
Collections Management Branch



