Publishing in the Knowledge Economy - DTI Home Page

Publishing in the knowledge economy
The industry today
13.4 Journals
Strengths
• Subscription business model
• At forefront of technological developments
• No taxation of information and knowledge in
print
• English language – for content sourcing and
sales
• Science and research base
• Brand resides in journal (strength if owned)
• Ability to cross-promote from one journal to
another
• Direct relationships with subscribers in
many cases
Constraints and weaknesses
• Inadequate funding of higher education and
research
• Inadequate funding of academic libraries
• Brand resides in journal (weakness if owned
by institution or society)
• Hard to launch new titles – need to persuade
customers to drop one to make room
Threats
• Copyright infringement
• Disintermediation by academics publishing
direct in electronic journals
• New intermediaries may interpose between
publishers and customers and command the
customer relationship and customer data
• Inequitable taxation of electronic content and
migration of activity to US
• Cost of maintaining and managing digital
archive
• Power of library customers
• Electronic Inter-Library Loan
• Dissolution of the journal as a package of
articles – pay per item becomes prevalent
(could also be an opportunity)
• Concentration of ownership allows big players
to squeeze out smaller ones through bundling
and other practices
• Big players cause resentment among authors
and customers
• More aggressive use of patents limits content
availability
Opportunities
• Electronic distribution brings down costs
• New service offerings possible based on
closer relationship with customer and new
technologies
• Dissolution of the journal as a package of
articles – pay per item becomes prevalent
• New fields of study open up and high degree
of academic specialisation creates new journal
possibilities (but difficult to sell without
knocking out another title – budget constraints,
power of library intermediaries)
• Alliances between publishers and universities
to create e-learning platforms
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