The Impact of Electronic Publishing: The Future for Publishers and Librarians

Citation

Chawner, B. (2010), "The Impact of Electronic Publishing: The Future for Publishers and Librarians", The Electronic Library, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 345-346. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471011033693

It may be a truism to say that change is the only thing that is constant, but nonetheless, anyone interested in the ways in which information and communications technology have affected academic publishing will agree that changes have been happening for most of the last 40 years. In this book, Brown and Boulderstone look at a number of trends that are affecting scholarly publishing, particularly research publishing in the hard sciences. Both authors are well qualified to write about this important and complex topic. Boulderstone is the director of eStrategy at the British Library, and Brown is the author of Electronic Publishing and Libraries (Bowker‐Saur, 1996). The topics they cover include the evolution of the journal publishing industry, new business models for publishing, changes in end‐user behaviour, changing publication formats, evolving attitudes to copyright, technological innovations, data and datasets, and social changes, including the development of collaborative software and user‐generated content. One of the book's strengths is the way in which Brown and Boulderstone integrate research findings into their discussion. To take one an example, in the chapter on changes to end‐user behaviour, they refer to research into: criteria used to evaluation online information; profiles of different types of users (I recognised myself as a connector); use of e‐journal features; and faculty attitudes to open access. A short chapter looks at changes to the research process and scholarly workflows that have been caused by the shift to multidisciplinary research and global collaboration. One of their key points is that there is considerable uncertainty about the way scholarly publishing will evolve, and which of the drivers for change they discuss will have the most effect. While they acknowledge that no one has a crystal ball that will allow them to predict the future accurately, their final chapter presents their conclusions about the future of scholarly communication, and the potential roles for publishers, libraries, and aggregators. They suggest that librarians will need to have a better understanding of their institution's overall information infrastructure, and will take a more proactive role in meeting with academic staff's information needs. The ability of journal publishers to offer their products directly to end‐users means that aggregators face particular challenges in the years to come. This is not a book to skim through in an afternoon; rather, each chapter demands careful reading and consideration of the issues it raises. It is the first book I have seen that covers such a comprehensive range of factors that are influencing the future of electronic scholarly publishing, focusing on broad issues rather than operational detail. There is an extensive list of references, and a subject index. I recommend it for academic libraries, and for all library studies collections.