In thinking about the future of scholarly publishing – a topic almost as much discussed as the perennially popular ‘death of the academic monograph’ – I found a number of themes jostling for attention, some new, some all-too familiar. What are the challenges and implications of open access? How do we make our content relevant to a truly global audience? What is the right response to the shifting market, the decline of the library budget? How might we shift our position along the value chain? And whither print?
The advent of digital, market changes, the rise in importance of emerging economies, the decline in library budgets, the move towards open access: these are shifting sands beneath the feet of traditional publishers. But this is nothing new. As Michael Bhaskar points out, in his lively book, The Content Machine: Towards a Theory of Publishing from the Printing Press to the Digital Network, “Publishing, famously, is always in crisis.”
- Companies:
- Oxford University Press