Disruptive technologies: what future universities and their libraries?

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Library Management

ISSN: 0143-5124
Incorporates: Librarian Career Development

Online from: 1979

Subject Area: Library and Information Studies

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Document Information:
Title:	Disruptive technologies: what future universities and their libraries?
Author(s):	Susan Lafferty, (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia), Jenny Edwards, (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)
Citation:	Susan Lafferty, Jenny Edwards, (2004) "Disruptive technologies: what future universities and their libraries?", Library Management, Vol. 25 Iss: 6/7, pp.252 - 258
Keywords:	Higher education, Innovation, Obsolescence, Publishing, University libraries
Article type:	Research paper
DOI:	10.1108/01435120410699636 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Abstract:	Christensen's Theory of Disruptive Technologies predicts that mainstream organisations and industries can be made obsolete by new technologies that change the whole paradigm of the industries in which they operate. This paper demonstrates the relevance of the theory of disruptive technologies to academic libraries, higher education and the academic publishing industry. The way universities are organised and how they operate could change radically; scholarly communication could be transformed, placing academic publishers at risk; academic libraries may become irrelevant as new business models emerge. There are strategies that these organisations might adopt to limit the effect of such technologies and/or preferably transform them into sustaining technologies.