Dissemination of content in the electronic age
Publishing industry and academic libraries modify the way they function with the onset of digitization of content

By Kannaki Deka
New Delhi, October 23: Stephen Barr, managing director, Sage Publishing UK, was in New Delhi recently to attend the International Conference on Academic Libraries in Delhi University. Sage Publication is a major academic book publisher and the fifth largest journal publisher in the world in terms of number of journals published. Barr spoke to us about the changing scenario in the publishing industry and the ongoing debate about Open Access.

With more and more people resorting to the Internet to access information, the way publishing industry functions, has undergone a change. Barr says the effect is different for different sectors of the publishing industry. “One of the key areas we represent is journal publishing, and it is primarily an electronic activity. We are still going to see the ongoing shifts in journal publishing as an electronic form. Book publishing is just beginning to go into that same cycle, so there is a significant shift now taking place towards online books,” says Barr.

The role of an academic library has been modified by academic journals going online. The shifts in libraries are paralleled by the shifts that are going on in publishing. Academic and educational publishing is the biggest piece of the publishing industry. Barr says, “Libraries are moving from a building in which a lot of print copies are held into an online repository from which content is accessed and that is quite a fundamental shift. But there are increasingly in the US, UK and Australia more campuses where essentially the print side of the library is falling away, the building then becomes a kind of mix between a cafeteria and a set of stations for people to dock their laptops while they work.” The libraries worldwide have become an electronic resource compared to Indian libraries, which are still in a very traditional mode. But Barr believes the potential is definitely there in India but the resources have to be made available.

The recent debate about Open Access has become a major cause for concern for publishers worldwide. Barr explains the debate, saying, “Open access argument is an argument that in an electronic environment, content should be put up on the web and made universally available for everyone to access it. There are very strong advocates arguing that academic journal content is paid for by government research funding and so on, and it shouldn’t be then charged when it is sold into the library systems.” Currently to get access to the content of academic journals, people need to be in some form purchasing them. It is normally the library that buys them then the academics and students access them.