Electronic publishing in the new millennium

There can be no doubt that the age of electronic publishing is now upon us. No scholarly publisher could make a more self-evident statement, yet it does bear some elaboration. In 1997, approximately 3500 journals and newsletters were available online, of which around 1000 were peer reviewed.1 In that same year, a Cranfield University/eLib project found that 27 of 49 academic societies canvassed had plans for electronic publication of their journals.2 Today, it is estimated that over 3900 peer-reviewed journals are available electronically.3 For book publishers, print-on-demand technology has heralded the move from just-in-case to just-in-time publication, and technology has turned the book-as-product on its head. Wireless devices are a reality, and some universities are actively encouraging students and faculty to use them.4 As a result, many publishers have already taken steps to digitize their forward programmes, if not their backlists. The electronic era has revolutionized the way scholarly information is used. The copyright minefield notwithstanding, users of published research want the ability to cut and paste material from different publications (be they books or journals) to form bespoke educational material, meeting the precise needs of students and researchers, or even the informed general public. Not a publisher among us hasn’t uttered the words ‘linkage’, ‘portals’ and ‘gateways’ in an attempt to define, at least partially, how the most successful electronic publishers will attend to the demands of customers who are intoxicated by the potential of the internet. That same internet has fostered a culture of immediate access to free information, preferably in a one-stop-shop environment, and academic publishing has felt the consequent rumblings.5 And so we as publishers find ourselves well and truly in the electronic marketplace, sometimes struggling to redefine what we do and how we can continue to add value. We are not always in agreement: presentation, mode of access, pricing models and technical platform vary widely across publishers, not to mention the types of electronic product we supply. However, there is general agreement among publishers that we have to re-evaluate how we deliver that added-value content to users while maintaining our market positions. How, then, are we to grasp the ring that represents profitable electronic publishing? Many of the existing ways of delivering content and charging for it continue to work. But as technology develops and the internet continues to shape the needs and expectations of users, new ways of delivering content are arising, which will require new means of selling and charging.