How The Digital Revolution Can Fix Scientific Publishing And Speed Up Discoveries

Scientific, Technical, and Medical (STM) publishing is big business. It generates $19 billion in revenue per year, the majority of which is earned by a few powerful publishers that enjoy profit margins of up to 40 percent. Inflated subscriptions sold to academic libraries keep them moving ahead because the librarians feel they have no choice but to buy. These companies add little value to the actual publishing product but they are entrenched.

Many forces are now at work to change the status quo which has existed for more than 100 years.