News

International Publishers Confront an E-Future
James Lichtenberg -- 1/1/01

In mid-december, some 90 leading publishers gathered under the auspices of the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, for their 16th annual fall seminar, following the London Online Conference. On this millennial occasion, they began a day early in order to address the strategic issues prompted by electronic production.

Reporting that scientific authors want their articles published as quickly as possible so as not to be "scooped," Amanda McLean-Inglis (Blackwell Science) proposed that publishers create a formal "electronic editorial office" that will shorten every step in the production workflow. While authors recognize the importance of appearing in prestigious and high-impact journals, McLean-Inglis pointed to survey results that also show ongoing concern about production, editorial and publisher delays, and unease about reviewers who are "superficial, unqualified or unscrupulous."

Curiously, despite the complexities of injecting new technologies, platforms and formats into production, McLean-Inglis said that "technological problems can usually be tackled. The really difficult problems are generally cultural: to change editor, author and reviewer behavior represents a major challenge."

Several issues surfaced repeatedly throughout the day. Daniel Smith (Elsevier) voiced the problem that, given the flexibility of digital publishing, "there is never a final version." An even more ominous issue created by digital publishing is the rise of what Cliff Morgan (John Wiley), in his presentation on standards, and David Inglis (director, Digital Library Programme, British Library) called "the article economy." This represents a new development in the electronic marketplace in which users increasingly seek their own mix of specific articles rather than whole journals.

Anders Geertsen (managing director of Danish publishers, Munksgaard) took attendees step by step through the entire production process, highlighting relationships with suppliers and pinpointing problems that occur when the online version is created after the print one. Proposing seven ground rules--including "clearly define your production methodology" and "if you squeeze out suppliers, do it quickly"--Geertsen showed the significant benefits of what he called an "inverted" workflow, where production moves from manuscript directly to the Web version, with print as a spinoff of the final digital file.

Striking the most positive note of all, Tony Ross (v-p, director of publishing services, Academic Press) declared: "Digital content is our future. The technology is here and is sound. Cost is not a barrier. What are we waiting for?"

Despite many concerns, by and large the presentations pointed to the inevitability of electronic publishing. In his summary, Johannes Velterop suggested that publishers will increasingly have to move from a product to a service orientation. They will need to work together across a broad spectrum of product "granularity," from parts of articles to "super" or "virtual" journals. The common goal, he explained, is "to help the user gain a comprehensive body of knowledge."

Copies of the presentations are posted at the STM Web site: www.stm-assoc.org.