Publishing in the Knowledge Economy - DTI Home Page

Publishing in the knowledge economy
Issues for competitiveness
their life. There is every reason to believe that
this will continue as the world moves towards
a knowledge economy and this is an important
opportunity for the publishing industry.
Individual sectors have varying degrees of
profile with the Government. The national and
regional newspapers are obviously very highprofile
and are used as a prime way of getting
messages over to the public. But Government
does not always see the newspaper industry as
an industry rather than as a platform for the
dissemination of messages.The role of
magazine and book publishers in society is
probably less obvious to government.
The skill sets available across the board
of publishing ranges from being able to
manipulate, contextualise and personalise
information through profiling end-user groups.
This is a core set of skills for the knowledge
economy and one that no other industry has to
such depth and breadth. There is an opportunity
to exploit this expertise outside of the traditional
publishing products.
The number of Hollywood films based on
novels is increasing dramatically. This provides
the book industry with further opportunities to
raise its profile as an influencer of society.
The business publications not only arm the
industry with a very valuable skill set, but also
Figure 15.4 Percentage of respondents
indicating importance of raising
industry profile
Most
important
Least
important
Not very
important
Moderately
important
Quite important
Source Pira Questionnaire
influence decisions taken throughout business.
Specialised business magazines influence
heavily design and purchasing decisions in
companies. Many economic decisions use
reports that the publishing industry is
responsible for initiating.
15.5.2 Challenges
It was noteworthy that 72% of respondents to
our survey thought that the profile of the
publishing industry should be higher.
Many industrial companies are beginning
to realise that their internal information and
documentation has commercial value. In certain
industries, such as pharmaceuticals and law,
companies are beginning to take on the role of
publishers with customised information tailored
to the needs of their clients and customers.
The profile of the industry is important in
attracting and retaining staff. As has been stated
previously, there is some concern in the
industry about its ability to retain staff and to
attract sufficient technological staff in times of
need. The industry needs to build on its current
profile to ensure that publishing across the
board is seen as a dynamic industry offering
excitement and challenges, to compete with
those offered by other areas of the media and
software industries.
The role of publishers in the education of
children and dissemination of research to the
benefit of UK Plc is often not recognised by the
general public and underestimated by
government. For example, early moves around
the Digital Curriculum were signs that not all
parts of the Government fully understood the
vital role that educational publishers play in
developing texts for schoolchildren. Had they
done so, the initial steps to encourage the BBC
to take a dominant role in creating the Digital
Curriculum would have been tempered with
active encouragement of the publishing industry.
This is also true in the academic world, where
journal publishers are often seen as the villains,
whereas many of the publishing outlets for
research would not be initiated and available
were it not for publishers.
96