The IFLA LIBPUB Section was officially first organized as a Special Interest Group at the IFLA WLIC in Kuala Lumpur (2018), to advance the rapidly emerging, relatively new field of Library Publishing, which is part of a broader range of scholarly communication activities driven and managed by all types of libraries: national, state, academic, and public and private.

Specifically, library publishing involves the publication of predominantly open access journals, monographs, and other materials to a variety of audiences and through a variety of languages, using open source or proprietary publishing platforms. Library publishing activities are closely linked to the strategic imperatives of institutions pertaining to open scholarship.

Library publishing activities build upon librarian competencies such as collection development, copyright, discoverability, outreach, and platform management and may offer a range of support services including consultancy, editorial, training in workflows, policy development, dissemination, hosting, digitization of collections, ethics and governance, impact, and sustainability. Libraries can act as publishers directly or lend support in other ways, such as infrastructure or funding local or global open publishing initiatives.

LIBPUB became an IFLA Section in December 2025.

This unit is part of the Professional Division D.