Thing # 20

I chose to explore Lulu, the all-in-one self publishing website. Through Lulu, you can print, self-publish, and sell your book or CD. It seems like an ideal site for someone who just wants to print up a few copies of a book. They use a print-on-demand service, so they will only print a copy when someone orders the item. You can also get published through Lulu, which will get you an ISBN and distribution through Amazon.com and other retailers. Of course, all these services cost money. The cost might be worth it to someone who wants to avoid large set up costs, or to someone who doesn't want to print hundreds of books.

Besides the commercial side of the site, Lulu offers online community forums through groups, message boards, and a blog. This way, lulu users (or someone who is just interested in self-publishing) can interact and discuss issues and ideas.

I haven't used this service, so I can't really talk about any major downsides to it. I guess it's a little pricey, but I'm sure most of that is attributed to not printing things up in large quantities.
Other than that, I really enjoyed browsing through the books. There are tons of interesting books in the catalog. A lot these books may not be available anywhere else, so it's nice so many of them in one place.

For libraries, I can't see much of a use outside of it being a collection development tool. Lulu has a large catalog of self-published books that are probably only available from small presses or the creators themselves. So Lulu is helpful in that respect.