Mullock / Self-Published Memoirs in Libraries Self-Published Memoirs in Libraries: Challenges, Opportunities, and Recommendations Hailey Mullock Abstract The article explores ways in which life writing, specifcally self-published life writing currently exists in public libraries including collection development and programming. The argument is made for an need for self-published life writing and for self-published life-writing to be more present in libraries through an examination of the value of both reading and writing life writing. Finally, suggestions on how public libraries can improve their collection, space, and workshops to expand on self-published life-writing concludes the paper. Keywords self-publishing; memoirs; public libraries; collection development iJournal - Journal Vol. 4 No. 2, Spring 2019 39 Mullock / Self-Published Memoirs in Libraries Self-published and unpublished life-writing often does not make it onto the shelves of your local library. Life writing from individuals with some sort of celebrity status, including popular authors such as Margaret Atwood, or those with a story from a notable time period or life experience, such as a Holocaust survivor, or manuscripts that are centuries old are all deemed to have a particular value to maintain and preserve in collections such as the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. Not often included on the list are the life writings of everyday people such as scrapbooks, diaries, and self-published memoirs. The life writing of everyday people may survive in families for generations, or they may be forgotten and tossed one spring cleaning. Library and information professionals must look at how and if such materials can be shared, maintained, and preserved due to the growing creation of self-published writing made available through a variety of new technologies. Narrowing the focus to the public library there is a responsibility to support the local community, including the written lives of the community members. As public libraries are not archives, it would be diffcult for them to take in unpublished materials like diaries and other ephemera due to their lack of identifcation, copyrights, and other metadata often included with published materials. Self-publishing is a stream of life-writing that public libraries can support as a way of preserving life-writing. Especially as self-publishing becomes a growing phenomenon due to the increase in digital self- publishing tools available, libraries must respond to the needs of both authors and readers. This paper focuses on self-published memoirs, one of the recently more popular genres of life writing. Assuming that it is the mandate of the public library to foster and support its local community, through supporting and preserving self-published memoirs the public library can participate in maintaining and sharing the lives of local people who are the heart of the community. BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW Multiple articles explore the future potential role of the library as support for self-publishing authors, yet there are still several steps to take for self-publishing support in libraries to become widespread. At the time of this paper, there is no literature explicitly looking at how to support self-published life-writing in libraries. This paper looks at life-writing, self-publishing, and libraries’ community responsibilities to self-publishing and more specifcally to self-published memoirs. LIFE WRITING Life-writing is the genre of literature that tells a non-fctitious true story of someone’s life. The words non-fctitious and true are both used as life-writing is a true story from an individual’s account and may not be factually or historically accurate (Couser, 2011). Life-writing can be in a variety of forms such as a biography, autobiography and memoir as well as some less commonly published ones, such as diaries, scrapbooks and letters. Memoir is a subgenre of life-writing that is usually limited in scope, focusing on a single life experience or sometimes several life experiences around a single theme (Couser, 2011). Memoir is a frst-person genre where the author is also the subject. The term memoir stems from the French word memory and signals that a memoir is primarily based on memory (Couser, 2011). The “true” story of a memoir is subjective as it is the author’s truth based on their memories and is not necessarily historically accurate. With memory as the primary resource, the genre is more accessible to amateurs than iJournal - Journal Vol. 4 No. 2, Spring 2019 40 Mullock / Self-Published Memoirs in Libraries some other genres of writing. Authors can write about their own experiences without necessarily needing to do research. Couser discusses how the availability of the contemporary memoir has resulted in the innovation of what he calls the “nobody memoir” (2011, p.12). He calls it such as anyone can pick up a pen, or computer, and write their story with very few limitations. The many new digital tools available to self-publish, such as Amazon’s CreateSpace, combined with possibility for anyone to write their own memoir has made memoirs a popular genre of self- publishing, either for proft or personal use. Memoirs can be benefcial to the author, the reader, and the community. For the author, the memoir through its refective practices can result in self-creation, therapy and newfound gratitude. Self and identity are at the core of life-writing not only because of the subject matter but also because the documenting of the self is also self-inventive (Couser, 2011). Life-writing is a self-refective act that involves thinking of the past and refecting. Pausing and refecting develops into investigations of self-knowing (Smith and Watson, 2010). In the process of life writing and self-exploration, the self is not only being discovered but is also being changed and developed resulting in self-creation. In a similar way that life writing can encourage self-creation through pause and refection, it can also be therapeutic as the author can work through suffering such as from traumatic or obsessional memories. This therapeutic life-writing is referred to as “scriptotherapy” by Suzette A. Henke. (Smith and Watson, 2010, p. 22). Laura D. Russell (2016) in “(Re)Reading and (Re)Writing Disruption through Gratitude: Personal Narrative as a Method of Inquiry and Discovery” discusses how through life-writing and refection on her own life she “probed a readiness to re-read my circumstances” (p. 470). Life-narrative can give the author a new type of awareness of their life by looking at it from different perspectives that make possible realizations and can awaken a greater appreciation and gratitude (Russell, 2016). In putting the self down in words, there is a desire to preserve the self, the life and the history. In writing memoirs, there is the potential to not only be preserved in book form but also in the minds of all of the readers and to live on in others. In reading a memoir, readers are given an opportunity to intimately learn about another person who is different from themselves, but who is likely also similar in some ways. In making connections with those who are different than themselves, readers can develop empathy. Memoirs can give a voice to silent and marginalized people. A reader can learn, understand and grow to empathize with a person who may have been previously considered “other” to themself and their experiences. Having community members who are empathetic to one another may create a closer and stronger community with strong relations across diverse groups. Not only can we see the identity creation of the author from memoirs, but also growth and identity creation of a community. Every autobiographical narrative is historically and culturally situated, placing it in a particular community, or a particular identity (Russell, 2016). For many narratives, the geographical and temporal location strongly characterize the story being told (Russell, 2016). Members of the community can connect to the memoir, the author and other readers through geographical location: their shared community. THE LIBRARY’S RESPONSIBILITY Both the American Library Association (ALA) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) have calls and committees on issues related to self- iJournal - Journal Vol. 4 No. 2, Spring 2019 41 Mullock / Self-Published Memoirs in Libraries published memoirs in IFLA’s Acquisition and Development Section and in ALA’s Strategic Directions (IFLA, 2018 & ALA, 2017) . The American Library Association discusses in their Strategic Directions the library as a community hub, that provides programming in the arts, and through programming can transform lives and communities (ALA, 2017). In the ALA’s most recent strategic plan, one of the advocacy goals is that the library is to be a “hub of community engagement and continual learning: a place to form the critical thinking skills fundamental to learning in a technologically evolving world, to access information, and to create and share new knowledge” (ALA, 2017, p.2). The library has extended beyond book lending to become a community center that actively participates in the growth of the community’s knowledge and creativity. As a space, the library can provide resources to self-publishing memoirists in several capacities. Libraries can provide knowledge resources such as books, subscriptions to online tutorials, workshops and regular programming. Libraries can be creative spaces through available technology such as the Espresso book printing machine which allows patrons to print their book for a nominal fee, as well as providing materials and spaces for creative endeavors such as memoir writing. The space allows the community to come together through activities such as writing groups. These resources and actions contribute to making the library a community hub. Programs have increased to be one of the primary services available at libraries, aligning with the goals of community engagement.