Why Hasn’t Scientific Publishing Been Disrupted Already?

Looking back on 2009, there was one particular note that seemed to sound repeatedly, resonating through the professional discourse at conferences and in posts throughout the blogosphere: the likelihood of disruptive change afoot in the scientific publishing industry.

Here in the digital pages of the Scholarly Kitchen, for example, we covered John Wilbanks’ presentation at SSP IN and Michael Nielsen’s talk at the 2009 STM Conference. They were both thoughtful presentations and I agree with many of the points raised by both speakers. I think Wilbanks is right when he says that thinking of information in terms of specific containers (e.g. books, journals, etc.) presents an opening to organizations in adjacent spaces who are able to innovate without the constraints of existing formats. I also agree with Nielsen’s point that acquiring expertise in information technology (and especially semantic technology)—as opposed to production technology—is of critical importance to scientific publishers and that those publishers who do not acquire such expertise will fall increasing behind those organizations that do.