Updated.
Publications are needed even for community college full-time positions in this time when there are hundreds of folks looking for the same job and very few jobs available. I learned that the hard way.
But I was very interested to read a comment on the CHE forums on job searching.
I’ve seen applications shut down because someone had about 5 pubs in lowly journals. It would have been better to have none. If you want to keep going after the tt job, keep publishing.
That definitely depends on the job you are going after, but it is something to keep in mind.
Update: One thing I think is interesting/odd about the comment is that it is better to have none than to have five in lowly journals, but you should keep publishing. So 0>5, but…
To some extent the “publish or perish” has trickled down to the community college, at least in terms of being a visible measure of determination on whether or not you should be hired. There are so many people on the market, that even the CCs are being inundated with applicants. In that case/those cases, the search committees have to winnow. Publications are a good winnowing tool.
Once at the CC, however, the publish model is significantly less of an issue. My department definitely promotes our work, especially any books we have published, but they don’t give us any more money or anything else about having books out.