Electronic Publishing and Libraries Planning for the Impact and Growth to 2003

Citation

Swash, G. (1998), "Electronic Publishing and Libraries Planning for the Impact and Growth to 2003", New Library World, Vol. 99 No. 6, pp. 262-263. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.1998.99.6.262.2

This report is a detailed examination of trends in electronic publishing and their effect on scholarly communication. For libraries, and the British Library in particular, the dilemma of whether to acquire information in digital format and the implications that current decisions may have for the future of collections and services is very real. The issues explored and the evidence examined in this report are therefore highly relevant to many institutions. The report sets out to gather together a body of evidence which might be used to analyse the present and the foreseeable future for the industry in the short to medium term. The focus of the report is up to the year 2003.

The report looks in depth at the factors that will affect the production of research publication world‐wide and concludes that we are unlikely to see any dramatic increase in output in the foreseeable future. The effect on the research community, of developments and innovations in electronic publishing on the other hand, the report argues, is quite different. The anticipated effects of innovation in scholarly electronic publishing will be major and not entirely positive. For a variety of reasons the authors predict that the late 1990’s will see chaos in the formal publishing system with potential detrimental effects on the scholarly communication process.

In order to reach its conclusions, the report looks in some detail at the individual emerging technologies, some of which, like CD ROM, are already reasonably well established, others are still developmental and their future potential is as yet unknown. In its attempt to analyse and predict where these technologies might be taking us, the report emphasises the need to look at the industry in total. Individual products and services cannot be viewed in isolation as these are in competition with one another and therefore interconnected. It takes a wide range of forecasts and opinions in all areas and attempts to synthesise these to assess where the industry may be going and what are the forces that will influence future development.

The two principle sections of the report look at the demand‐side and the supply‐side economics of the industry. The report speaks of the “frustration gap” between the growth in research output, in terms of new articles, and the decline in library funding which results in the ability of institutions to provide their users with this material in‐house. The findings highlight that publishing is indeed growing faster than the ability of institutions to buy new products. It is also argued that the influence of new media has been destabilising and the report points to basic conflicts between the needs of the industry and the expectations of users, especially in the area of document delivery. The view is expressed that there is already an irreconcilable split between the forces which create the supply of scholarly information and those which satisfy the demand. Below break‐even levels, conventional publishing will become unviable and as the future viability of document delivery ultimately depends on the journal, the structure of the industry is approaching crisis point as a result.

This is a detailed analysis of a wide range of issues and data which has produced some predictable and some less obvious conclusions. It supports the text with many graphs and diagrams to illustrate key points (some of which goes beyond an analysis of the information industry and includes study of demographic trends, international R&D statistics and more). It is well worth studying for this data alone. Several graphs and charts, unfortunately, contain either too much information or are poorly presented, with the result that they are difficult to read and lose much of their impact. A further frustration is that a high proportion of the evidence cited is itself either incomplete or dated. Surveys and statistics from 1991 and 1992 are routinely quoted and as a great deal has changed in numerous areas, this considerably weakens the report and its conclusions. In fairness, one of the conclusions is that we need better and more consistent data from which to make informed judgements for the future.

One of the clearest outcomes however, is that it is still supremely difficult, even with so much information gathered and analysed together, to accurately predict where the electronic information industry is going, even up to the year 2003.