Helping Manage the E-Journal Forest Do You Need an Agent Any More? Part 2

• Published in: The Serials librarian Vol. 46; no. 1-2; pp. 179 - 190
• Main Author: Bosch, Stephen
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Taylor & Francis Group 19-04-2004; Haworth Press; Taylor & Francis LLC
• Subjects: Acquisition and access: development policy, licenses, censorship; Acquisitions; Collection management; Electronic periodicals; Electronic publishing; Exact sciences and technology; Information and communication sciences; Information science. Documentation; Information service management; Library and documentation centre management; Sciences and techniques of general use; Subscription agencies; Subscription agency; Electronic periodical; Subscription; Professional activity; Library management; Subscription management
• ISSN: 0361-526X; 1541-1095
• DOI: 10.1300/J123v46n01_19

Electronic publishing is changing the business of serial publication. Yet despite tremendous growth in the volume of electronic publishing, traditional print publishing has not disappeared; consequently e-publishing has introduced more complexity into the environment, and current service needs co-exist alongside the need for new services required to manage e-publishing. Some believe that electronic publishing will be the end of the serial vendor or subscription agent; others are not so ready to mark their passing.
Assuming that the current commercial model will remain relatively unchanged as the basis for most scholarly communication, the roles of serial vendors or subscription agents will change, but the services they bring to the library and the publishing community will continue to prove valuable. Support will still be needed for paper subscriptions, and new services are needed to manage e-journals. Of course change is inevitable, and those service providers that fail to react to the changing environment will go out of business. Those that are able to develop new products will survive in the changed environment. If the basic business model transforms, and freely-accessible institutional digital repositories become the primary nodes for scholarly communication, then the publisher/vendor/ library chain will become irrelevant.