During a recent telephone conversation, I was asked to explain what qualifications and experience I had that I thought I could possibly conduct a storytelling workshop for the general public. This earlier presentation that I'd given at my old school came to mind. I repost it here with love to all the girls and women who constantly have to justify themselves.

Birrong Girls High School
Guest presentation
November 2014
 
This morning I visited your school for the first time in over 30 years. In all my 6 years at BGHS I never walked through the front door, always coming and going through the back gate, so I was slightly disoriented when I came through the front entrance today. But as I heard the lovely sound of all the girls in the corridor, like the chatter of beautiful lorikeets flitting through a long aviary, and walked past the wall of lockers, memories came flooding back.
 
I remembered a girl nearly everyone called Fuzznut. She had the most incredible curly hair that her mother insisted on having cut short to keep it under control. She was short, wore glasses and was incredibly shy. I remembered that if she was ever asked a question in class, Fuzznut would blush scarlet from her collarbone right up to her hairline. Not because she didn’t know the answer, but because, as she later told her close friends, it was as though her heart leapt up through the back of her throat and choked all the words about to come out.
 
When some of us would compare report cards, Fuzznut’s would always show very high marks but the comments would often be things like
 
 “A very quiet, friendly girl who really must contribute more in class if she ever hopes to achieve anything.”
 
 When those report cards were taken home, Fuzznut told her friends, her mother would congratulate her on the marks and when she read the comments would say:
 
            “The world needs the listeners and the thinkers as much as it needs the talkers.”
 
No-one calls me Fuzznut anymore. They call me Julie, or Jules, or even Dr Julie. You see, my parents always believed that I could achieve anything I wanted to, as long as I worked hard enough. I was the first in my family to finish my HSC. Apart from my mother’s 2nd cousin I was the 1st in my extended family to attend university. My family was very much working class. My maternal grandfather had been a bullocky driver,
while my paternal grandfather was a shearer’s cook and a manager of country pubs amongst other things. My dad was a hard-working plumber and my mum was a secretary until she married, when it was then expected that she would give up work.
 
University for a shy girl was an eye-opening experience, not least because as I walked through the gates of UNSW for the 1st time, a pigeon soared overhead and proceeded to poop on my head and down my left shoulder. A girl walking beside me said, when she finally stopped laughing enough,
 
            “In the part of Italy that my family come from, it’s good luck for a bird to poop on you.”
 
Actually, she didn’t use the word poop, but it will do for now. She then set about using the fine linen handkerchief that her mamma had insisted she bring to “school” to clean me up. Whether it was luck or a higher destiny that put Gina on the same bus as me that day, I was very grateful. Gina was the 1st in her family to go to uni too and we stumbled through our entire bachelor degree together.
 
I majored in English literature and history and I finally felt at home on that campus. I was privileged to listen to amazing lecturers as they brought the past lives of kings, statesmen, poets, playwrights and novelists alive, not through a list of dates and dry, hard facts but through stories. When I wasn’t in a lecture theatre or a tutorial room, I was exploring the Aladdin’s Cave of the Uni library.
 
Who knows exactly what they want to do for a career?
 
I didn’t either, and I was 2 weeks away from finishing my degree when a friend invited me to an information session about a 1 year post graduate diploma in librarianship. Have you ever had one of those lightbulb moments? I had one right there and actually said out loud;
 
            “You’re an idiot. Why didn’t you think of that before?”
 
I quickly had to apologize to Shakti who thought I was talking about her.
 
So my main career has been in a variety of libraries, across several different Australian states, but in between I’ve worked in plumbing supply stores, where I learnt more about bathroom fittings and swearing that I ever needed. I’ve sold bread at dusty country markets and learnt about customer service and the difference between a baguette and a French stick. I spent my Uni holidays working on a cattle station in outback Queensland where I learnt about how to test a cow for pregnancy and how to muster cattle on horseback so you don’t cause a stampede. I also learnt on that first cattle muster not to be arrogant about the education I was getting. I was told to ride at the back of the mob and another jackaroo must have seen the look of disappointment on my face. He brought his horse over near mine, smiled at me and said,
 
            “So Clancy rode to wheel them – he was racing on the wing
            Where the best and boldest riders take their place”
 
And for the next hour or so we rode along reciting Banjo Patterson poetry, starting with “The man from Snowy River” where that line comes from; a poem that my father used to recite quite frequently. Whenever we were mustering after that, Dave and I would exchange Australian poems and folklore. Not bad for a bloke who finished school at 15 – even to this day I wish I had his knowledge of poetry. No-one else on the cattle station really understood why Dave always called me Clancy, but the name stuck whenever I visited Dingo in Queensland.
 
My grandfather, the shearers’ cook one, was a brilliant storyteller, although some of the tales he shared probably shouldn’t have been heard by children. I developed my love of storytelling from him and my maternal grandmother, who had a story or rhyme perfect for any situation. In the  2nd month of my 1st permanent job in a library, the children’s librarian went on an extended holiday and no-one was interested in filling in for her. With Archie, Nellie’s and Dave’s stories and poems ringing in my head I volunteered to do it. And that, I have to confess, is where my addiction began. I fell totally and utterly in love with storytelling and went to every workshop and read every book I could get my hands on about the topic. Believe it or not, I often get paid to tell stories and in the most amazing of places. The words that my grandfather used to tell me finally made sense. 
 
“Everyone has to earn a living in this world. But if you can find what it is that you love to do, you’ll never really work a day in your life.”
 
 I hadn’t had enough of formal education though and 10 years ago I returned to part-time study for my Doctorate in storytelling through the Uni of Newcastle and I was awarded my PhD last year. While I’ve obviously become much more comfortable along the way at public speaking and answering questions, I’ve also truly learned the wisdom of my mother’s words.
 
So while you may be quite capable of talking when you need to (and even when it’s not required), please also remember to be listeners and thinkers. The world is an amazing place, with so much to learn whether you’re sitting in an office, a university lecture theatre or on the back of a horse in 40 degree heat, staring at a cow’s rump. Sometimes finding what it is that you love to do is hard, and may take years before you discover it. Don’t give up. I know there are still challenges for girls but there are also amazing opportunities. I work at a university and I see girls/women every day who are excelling at marine science, pure mathematics, podiatry or engineering. Sometimes you need to ask for help and support to find your way and sometimes you just need to jump right in. And most importantly, don’t let anyone convince you that you can’t achieve whatever you set your mind to.
 
Good luck with your studies and the lifetime of learning ahead. Thank you.
 
Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_mountains_library_-_local_studies/32218886101/

With Halloween looming (lurking?) just around the corner, I thought I'd repost this piece written some years ago....

A caravan in winter; a frigid wind whistling through the gum trees that shelter the furthest reaches of the all but empty holiday park. Two little girls, tucked up in the hand knitted blankets that adorn their bunk beds, each shivering but not from the cold.
The usually softly spoken father has adopted a melodramatic tone, his face shadowed by the torch he is holding under his chin as he begins the story:
 
“On a dark, dark night, in a dark, dark wood....”
Even now, all these years later I still recall how my sister and I snuggled closer, our hearts beating faster as our father continued the story in a slow and rhythmic tone. Even though we’d heard the story numerous times before, we never knew what would leap out from the mysterious dark, dark box that emerged from the dark, dark cupboard. The loud shout as some object was thrown from the box at the end of the story always resulted in squeals of mock terror.
 
The scratch of the gum tree branches on the caravan walls after the lights were turned off and we were instructed to go to sleep, could have really been a witches claws, a terrified mouse, a vengeful skeleton, a slobbering hound or worse still, some other terror without a name. The soft voices of my parents and the close confines of the caravan meant that nothing outside could really harm my sister and I.
 
Several years later, while still in primary school, my best friend’s older brother sat us down in a darkened lounge room with the promise of telling us the scariest story he knew. He related the tale of two young people, who despite all warnings, on a night of the full-moon left the main road and drove their car down a track through the moor, hoping to spend some time alone. Of course the car ran out of petrol and the young man left to walk back to the village, instructing his girlfriend not to get out of the car or even wind down the window “no matter what you might hear.”
 
Our wide eyes, fear-struck faces and gasps of horror were apparently particularly satisfying to our teenage teller and he left us shaking in the dark as he walked away with a smirk on his face. Leaving the (relative) safety of my friend’s warm lounge room, to wait with her at the front of her house in the dark for my father to arrive to drive me home, was still one of the bravest things either of us has ever done.
 
The Headless Horseman, the Banshee, the tragic crew of the Flying Dutchman, various spectral children and numerous ghostly women who frequented fog-bound country lanes populate my story memories of childhood. Hearing those tales told again as an adult revives delicious quiver-prone associations of family evenings and holidays, when terror was a welcome but controlled sensation, and for a brief time the familiar walls of home disappeared, to be replaced by shadowy vales where anything was possible and horror lurked just over the half-seen horizon.
 
As an adult storyteller, story listener and story lover, the words, “Let me tell you a scary story”, are guaranteed to get my attention and bring a smile of anticipation to my face. Those stories that rely on suspense, a build-up of atmosphere and a satisfying ending are far better, to my way of thinking, than those blood thirsty tales that populate horror movies. Give me a good ghost story any night.

 Well doesn’t life have a funny way of serving lessons up on a platter?

In a strategy meeting today in which two very respected and talented colleagues and I were planning a storytelling workshop, I was suddenly struck by the paranoid thought that I had very little to offer. Sure I’d constructed my PowerPoint slides and written out the notes in which I was going to refer back to a successful story I’d created and shared. But still the niggling doubt kept hovering: "What fresh element could I contribute to the workshop aim of 'Create your own UON story?' "

Hadn’t I already done that a long time ago and just adjusted it over time? What fresh insights could I provide in the hands-on period of the workshop? What new elements could I bring to my story of my UON role? When the time came for us all to choose an artwork postcard that best reflected what we perceived as our role, I expected just to choose some halcyon landscape, where everything was perfect and peaceful.

Then the gods of storytelling rolled with mirth as they devised a new situation for me. On the day that I shrugged with complacency at the stability of my role, it all changed and chaos descended. A dramatic change in role that had been suggested, whispered about in dark corridors, hinted at in staff meetings and appeared tantalisingly on the edges of draft documents, suddenly loomed just on the horizon. Just like the figure of nightmares- Abiyoyo of South African folklore-  this new role took on gigantic proportions and a sinister aspect.

was that really what was planned? In the story, the giant Abiyoyo is overcome by the musical talent of the young boy. Good communication between staff and management also had the magical capacity to allay all fears and smooth the way to an easier introduction of new responsibilities and tasks. Would the future prove to be harmonious or discordant?

Only time (and future blog posts) will tell. In the meantime, it looks like I will be selecting a new artwork postcard in the workshop and working on a new story.
Happy days.

My Liaison Librarian colleague and I are on a mission to encourage the researchers on campus to create a Research Profile on the university’s website. Equally important though is to keep the profile up to date. There are huge demands on a researcher’s time but the value of having a current profile was illustrated to me just last week.

Let me tell you the story….
Three years ago 2 Associate professors and a Dr walked into a campus café. After exchanging greetings and catching up on the latest gossip, the opportunity to apply for a writing grant was discussed. It was decided that a “foundation article” that outlined the methodology for my doctoral research would be a good choice and I was fortunate to be successful with the grant application (thank you UON School of Education Publishing Support Strategy).
The article was written and submitted to a prestigious journal who after three massive revisions that met all of the reviewers' suggestions, still didn’t have the article that their reviewers obviously wanted written. We parted amicably and sent our article to another journal … more closely aligned with the doctoral research topic of oral storytelling. We received conditional acceptance if we addressed the (very reasonable) issues raised by the two reviewers. We resubmitted in late 2015 and waited for the article to be published.
The journal went through a few organisational issues in the meantime and the publication date for the new issue kept being put back but we finally received confirmation that the article would be published in July 2016 (fortunately the content of the article would still be relevant).

Now here’s the punchline of the story….
Last week I received an email that made my heart initially plummet.
“Your article didn’t include bios. I thought I had emailed you previously, but I think the email may not have gone through as I when I sent this email I noticed that it bounced back, and I needed to correct the email address…and so I check to see if the previous email went through, and I don’t see it in my inbox. “

I thought after all this time that our article was going to miss the deadline due to this communication breakdown and be delayed until the next issue of the journal.

But (and here it is – the moral of the story) our intrepid Managing Editor of the journal had searched on the UON website, found the CURRENT Researcher Profile for all three authors and moved the article on to copy-editing stage. We will have the opportunity to modify the bios but they will now only require minor tweaks due to using the up to date information from the profiles.

So there you have it. While establishing a Researcher profile is great, maintaining it is even better. Not only can potential collaborators see what your latest research is, other researchers can locate your publications, increasing your citations. As this story illustrates, having a current research profile can also avert publishing delays and get your work out there to be seen by fellow researchers.
So what are you waiting for? Have a look at your own research profile. If it needs some work to build it up then contact your  Librarian. For Ourimbah researchers, we will be hosting 2 staff profile photograph days in late July if your headshot needs renewing. For researchers at other institutions, it's worth contacting your subject librarian to see if they can organise a photo shoot. If your profile needs updating, then perhaps the mid-year break is the perfect opportunity to spend some time on it.

One of the biggest buzzwords in research circles at the moment is collaboration; rightly so as collaboration brings individuals together who have similar expertise, experience or interests to produce research of relevance and high quality. Sometimes the most interesting collaboration occurs however when people from different disciplines work together to enable the creation of something slightly different to the usual research article. Such was the case when academic and professional staff from three different disciplines at the University of Newcastle collaborated during the course of 2015. The following creative process involved the University of Newcastle Library, The Wollotuka Institute and the School of Nursing and Midwifery (SoNM) and took the form of organisational storytelling.

The initial invitation to create and tell two stories during the celebrations came during a SONM 25th Anniversary Celebration Committee meeting in February 2015. I had initially been invited on the committee as a library representative who could assist with the creation of the Anniversary book but was then welcomed as a general committee member. Following the storytelling invitation I realised that possibly few of the committee had a complete grasp of what oral storytelling would entail. I sent a one-page proposal to the committee outlining how storytelling has been successfully used in similar history walk situations, to enhance an experience and meaning. I gave several storytelling options for the celebrations, based on my experience as an Accredited Teller with the Storytelling Guild of Australia (NSW).

What do archives, Endnote, Dreaming stories, emails, committee meetings, proposals, private conversations, social media and clap sticks have in common? Not a lot usually but they all played a crucial part in creating the story commissioned for the 25th Anniversary. There was a discussion with the Head of School and the Chair of the SoNM anniversary committee to define what the story should cover. The Head of School expressed an interest in having a story that would outline the history of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Newcastle but be entertaining at the same time. It was decided that the storytelling would be better suited to the dinner, when people were relaxed and more receptive to listening to a story as part of the entertainment, rather than trying to fit it into the busy schedule of the history walk and the speeches. I knew my 10 minute story would be just one of many presentations and speeches during the 4 hours of celebration activities, so the entertainment factor had to be strong. I’ve created stories for specific purposes before so I knew how much work would be involved in just a 10 minute story. This time I thought it would be interesting to document the process. So here goes...

Preparation and time management
One of the crucial factors for me was to have enough lead-up time to research and create an appropriate story. I didn’t want it to be just a recitation of dates and significant building milestones, hoping rather to bring in interesting characters to give the story emotional depth. I realised that to achieve that multiple resources will be required. I would need to not only use primary and secondary literature sources but also utilise the human resources of the University of Newcastle.

Access
I was fortunate to be given access to early drafts of the SoNM Anniversary book which gave me an indication of what areas NOT to cover in my story. I wanted it to be fresh and provide a different view of the School’s history and not be merely a rehash of the book. I was also given copies of the details that would appear on the plinths that constituted the history walk in the Richardson Wing courtyard. Armed with this useful material I was able to imagine what the various speeches of the day would entail and decided to go back even further in the history of nursing in Newcastle to create my story.


I researched the nursing history of Newcastle, finding rich sources of information in the UON Library collection. Searching the journal databases also provided tantalising information about specific aspects of the life and practices of nurses in the early days of the city. It soon became obvious that the story wouldn’t be complete without incorporating some of the fascinating history of the Newcastle Hospital itself. Books, articles, newspaper clippings and newsletters provided background material but trying to obtain information about the nursing staff involved in the early days of this institution led me to the UON Cultural Collections Library. My helpful colleagues there provided me with access to difficult to obtain books that filled in the blanks about the first trained nurse at the hospital and the appalling conditions she worked in. I used Endnote to keep this wealth of information under control to ensure that notes I made could be accessed easily.
As is usually the case for me when crafting a story, I collected so much information that I almost felt like I was drowning in it. It is at this point that the creation of the story iself begins; when I cease to gather the information and begin to read through it all. As interesting facts begin to emerge they become the framework for my story. I devise my story arc, determining what the crisis will be that starts the story action, what will emerge as points of rising action and how the story will be resolved in a satisfying way for listeners. For a commissioned historical story, authenticity is a crucial element, and each aspect of the story is checked and adapted for historical accuracy. For example, part of the story involved the rebuilding of the original convict prison to become a 2 room hospital. For interest sake I inserted dialogue at this point in the story to illustrate who was in charge of the building and who actually did the construction. I originally had the overseer of convict work gang call out,
“Keep those bricks coming. They won’t carry themselves.”
When I checked on the history of the building of the original hospital however I learned that the stones of the prison hospital were re-used, rather than go to the time and expense of making hand-made bricks. This section of dialogue was corrected accordingly. I also had the overseer call out to another group.
“Put your backs into you lazy laggards or you’ll be feeling the cat of nine tails on your backs.”
Dialogue in an oral story particularly needs to sound authentic and the use of the formal name for the whip common to the penal colonies of New South Wales would hardly have been used in a work gang situation, where the convicts would have been painfully aware of the apparatus. So that sentence was changed to the colloquial phrase of,
“Put ya backs into you lazy laggards or you’ll be feeling the sting of the cat on your worthless hides.”
The body (no pun intended) of my story was coming along nicely but I still struggled with how to craft the beginning and stressed over it for several weeks. This is what my Facebook post of 7th October explained about my dilemma:
Sometimes despite the very best of intentions and ridiculous amounts of research, a story just refuses to be created. This is particularly frustrating when it is a commissioned piece and the day of the event is looming.
I've learned from experience though not to keep forcing the story-crafting process; to somehow push the pieces of the story to the back of my brain and just let them quietly percolate away.
Then with luck, good fortune or perhaps the intervention of my storytelling muses, nights like tonight happen. I woke at 2 am with the whole story sitting there, just waiting for me to commit it to the page, with all of the connecting pieces fully formed and the disparate elements of research clicking into place.
This comment and a few more sentences about the proposed structure of the story received positive feedback from my virtual storytelling colleagues and I felt reassured that I was on the right track. More than that, the idea to source an Awabakal Dreaming story to give context and interest was foremost in my mind. Back to research and the UON catalogue revealed that just such a collection of Dreaming stories was held in the Ourimbah Library. Amongst the treasure of the Awabakal Dreaming stories collection of classroom readers, the gem that is “How Muloonbinba was created” revealed itself as the perfect introduction to my larger story.
I wanted to ensure that the inclusion of this Dreaming story was culturally appropriate and sought the advice from the Community Engagement Officer and the Elder in Residence at the Gibalee Centre, which is conveniently located in the Ourimbah Library. Maddy and Bronwyn’s utterly appropriate advice was to,
“Speak with Awabakal people who are still living on Awabakal country who have a continuing connection to the history of the people and the place.”
They kindly provided me with the names of the correct people to speak with at the Wollotuka Institute at the Callaghan Campus. Joe and Amanda not only chatted to me about the inclusion of the story but offered to look at my entire story to ensure that it was culturally appropriate, including my proposed use of clap sticks to frame the Dreaming story. Once I received a very kind and encouraging go-ahead from Joe and Amanda, I did some extra research on Aboriginal traditional medicine, particularly of the Newcastle area to provide a link between the Dreaming story and the colonial health aspect of my story.
The factual content and structure of my story was now complete but it still needed to be polished and crafted ready for telling, rather than reading. When I tell a story I aim to give my listeners the impression that I have actually been to the world of the story and have travelled back to tell them about it. I want to be able to paint a mind picture for them so that they can imagine the setting and perspectives of the story. To do that I used the rich resource of the Flickr collection of Cultural Collections to find photographs of early Newcastle. I looked at maps of the early settlement to understand distances between early buildings, where the hospital was located and where the Callaghan Campus was in relation to it. I thought about where I would be located when telling the story and where the other venues for the day’s 25th Anniversary celebrations would be held.

With all of the creation aspects of the story under wraps, all that remained was to:
learn the story,
practice using the clap sticks to get the framing of the Dreaming story correct,
request permission to film the story for promotional purposes,
have a ball telling the story,
edit the video footage of the storytelling, (thanks to my "roadie" hubby Glenn for the filming),
seek permission to use images from the Cultural Collections Flickr collection,
and write this blog.

It’s quite overwhelming to realise how much research, collaboration, communication, time and preparation goes into “a simple story that needs to only last for 10 minutes.” It is so rewarding to do and I hope is as equally rewarding for an audience to listen to.
The bibliography of resources used for the creation of the story and a link to the video of the story  is available on request.

One of the most interesting yet challenging aspects of working in a university library is keeping up to date with new technologies and modes of communication. Social Media is the term that is currently either causing great angst or excitement at my workplace of the University of Newcastle.

Social Media workshop
At the "Building your online profile" workshop for researchers at the Ourimbah Campus this morning, the ever-enthusiastic and knowledgeable Jessie Reid covered many of the advantages, how-to's and potential pitfalls of using social media to promote a research profile.
Much of the buzz about using social media at the University of Newcastle has stemmed from the recent introduction of the researcher profile platform that enables uni staff to create and maintain their own biographical page.  With the option to now add hyperlinks, links to external social media sites and compose copy that promotes individual interests and current research projects, many staff members that I've spoken with are filled with confusion, if not dread at the new promotional landscape that's opened up before them.

Is Social Media for me?
One of the workshop participants this morning asked if he was missing out by not engaging at all with Facebook or Twitter.
While Jessie's very diplomatic response was to ask him if he believed that he was adequately hearing about the research being conducted in his field, my response is more aligned with this image:

















The Learning Commons on the upper level of the Ourimbah Campus Library of the Uni of Newcastle captured on a very rare day when no-one is using it. This space will be buzzing next week when Semester 2 commences.

This image of the upper level of the Ourimbah Library shows the different seating arrangement for different types of library use. Library users have different needs at different times. They may want to use the Library PC's in close proximity to their fellow students and use the pods on the left. They may have group work that doesn't rely on computer access and use the tables and chairs. They may just want to have a casual conversation or chillout on the lounges that are scattered around the library, including the ones at the rear of this Learning Common that overlook the beautiful Ourimbah Campus landscape. They may need to use a computer in a silent lab in order to focus, in which case they'd use the lab just to the right of this photo.

Finding your target audience
I think social media can be utilised the same way. Researchers need to know who's doing research in their field of interest. What types of social media are those other researchers using to highlight, discuss and disseminate their work? If you're only relying on traditional journal articles and published conference papers are you being kept out of the loop of collaboration and discussion with those who may be actively engaging with Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc.

Researchers also need to determine who they want their own audience to be. If you want your students or potential postgraduates to be aware of your work, are you promoting it in the social media platforms that they regularly visit? If a researcher makes a great contact at a conference and that contact later tries to locate them online to discuss future collaboration, how difficult are they making that by having a minimal online presence?
Fellow researchers, consumers, grant bodies, research centres and other potential research collaborators all use social media in different ways that change and adapt to suit their particular need at a given time. Just like library staff needed to be aware of the different ways our clients use the library space, researchers would benefit from thinking about how their fellow researchers and collaborators are using the social media space. Can they really afford not to go out there and meet them?

Beware the predators in the self-publishing pool
(This article appeared first in Women's Ink, Autumn 2015. Thanks to the Society of Women Writers NSW for their kind permission to republish here.)

At the Dare to be an author Literary Festival in October 2014, Blanche D’Alpuget gave a thought-provoking keynote address outlining her venture into self-publishing.  Her practical account of the process she established for self-publishing her novel ‘The lion rampant’ created a conversational thread that continued throughout the day, particularly during tea and lunch breaks

D’Alpuget is not alone amongst established authors who have decided to self-publish. Neil Gaiman and Stephen King are possibly the most well-known authors to go down this path, while R.L. Stine published a horror story via Twitter just in time for Halloween this year. Authors select different media to publish their work, taking into consideration their target audience, publishing budget and their own mode of reading preference. Each has their own advantages and pitfalls, but authors who particularly want to self-publish paper based books need to be aware of the perils of the ‘vanity press’ publisher.  While canny authors have been cognisant of these publishers, increasingly there is a newer, more devious and often outright dishonest player to watch out for; the predatory publisher.

University librarians have for some time been advising their ever- eager- to- publish academics to be wary of ‘predatory’ publishers, who contact individuals with promises of guaranteed publication in ‘high exposure’ journals that have well-respected experts/academics on their editorial boards. Upon closer investigation, these journals, if they exist at all, are poor quality and poor circulation, and in some cases, the academics supposedly on the editorial board had never even heard of the journal. What began with the academic journal sector has now spread to book publishing, with numerous companies contacting academics, conference presenters and blog authors amongst others with promises of quality, high volume publications. In the case of predatory publishers, the adage “if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is” is certainly true.

Enter Jeffrey Beall, librarian and researcher at the University of Colorado, Denver, who established ‘Beall’s List’ in 2010. The list began as a “critical analysis of scholarly open-access publishing” specifically for journals and has expanded to include analysis of book publishers.  While the majority of the publishers appearing in Beall’s list focus on scholarly, non-fiction material, it is highly recommended that any author considering self-publishing or taking up an offer with an unknown publisher, check the list before agreeing to submit their work.

Also on Beall’s site and possibly more pertinent to fiction authors considering self-publishing, is the comprehensive list of vanity press publishers compiled by Lara Seven Phillips, Pacific Collection Librarian, University of the South Pacific*, Suva, Fiji. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have also posted a very good comparison of vanity and subsidy publishers and The Australian Society of Authors also has several articles on self-publishing.  Librarians are continuing to monitor the predatory publisher trend, so if still in doubt, ask a friendly librarian.