The future of print

Presentation: HighWire Press

October 23, 2003

Cara S. Kaufman

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Is print on the decline? Is the future completely digital?If so, how significant is the trend?

Librarians Subscription agents Publishers Publications

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From librarians UCLA: Watershed year St. Vincent’s: I'm looking to cut my print collection

in half but increase my electronic access 10 fold. I'll spend the same $ but increase my collection

U TX: Our online holdings are already about 5 times what our print holdings are

Johns Hopkins: Moving to online only Dartmouth: 2004 will see acceleration of libraries’ move to

providing many journals in one format only: digital. Usage stats show that users prefer digital format over print

UCSD: In most cases, we are proposing to cancel the print version of a title while retaining electronic access

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From subscription agents

Major subscription agent expects to lose 1/3 of their STM print journal business by the end of 2004 Role of subscription agent likely to be further minimized Agents generally unable to intermediate e-subscriptions

Small - medium publishers will lose more market share Larger publishers to negotiate directly with libraries Libraries will find it worth negotiating directly because of title

collections

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From the literature Meta-analysis (Council on Library and Information Resources)

Personal subscriptions to journals continue to decrease Users rely more on electronic subscriptions subsidized by library

Publisher survey 4 out of 10 libraries are planning to drop print and expensive journals in 2004, in favor

of the electronic version Library budgets basically static; e-collections and e-budgets will increase--funding

coming from other (print) materials Larger research libraries have either made the step from print to electronic or they

are contemplating it Smaller libraries are following in kind, and certainly they are relying more heavily on

inter-library loan. American Library Association

Question not whether electronic publishing will continue to grow in importance but rather how quickly it will displace print

Library newsletter “No One Uses Them So Why Should We Keep Them?”

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Drivers

1. Capital budget constraints at universities

2. Reducing storage costs by reducing shelf space

3. Shrinking public-state library budgets

4. Above inflation subscription rate hikes

5. Closing hospital libraries6. Increasing user comfort with

online resources7. Researcher-friendly

features and functionality

8. Supplemental content available only online

9. Demand for aggregated e-content (“one-stop shopping”)

10. Institutional site licenses11.Greater availability of

unbundled subscriptions12.Buying power of consortia13.Big Deal discounts offered by

large publishers14.No international airmail or air

freight charges15. Incremental production

savings without print16.Rapid publication, instant

delivery

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Who’s most affected? Trend toward online only most accelerated in science, less so in clinical

medicine Scientists need to access databases for their jobs, and have ready access to the

Internet. Clinicians want answers to questions for patients they are treating, not lists of

search results. In the humanities, paper has more allure

As of yet, texts not as readily available as in the sciences 75% of students across disciplines access journals online but the percentage drops

to 68.5% of arts and humanities students Arts and humanities respondents do not feel as comfortable with electronic

information as respondents in social sciences, engineering, and business Faculty and student behavior

75% of faculty and graduate students prefer e-journals over their print counterparts 85% of faculty and graduate students prefer to access e-journals from their

desktop, rather than the library 30% of students never access print in the library

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Depends on… Proportion of small/medium journal v bigger journals in portfolio

Small and medium journals likely to feel the market squeeze Bigger journals, and bigger publishers, grab market share with title aggregation,

big deals, consortia sales Percentage of member v institution sales—less impact with more members,

greater impact with more institutions How strong are the “golden handcuffs” of society members—so that they

renew as members and continue to get print journal How much in demand journals are for library collections Specialty areas covered by journals—less impact in humanities, greater

impact in science Publisher policies

Continuing to bundle if market supportive Adding “magazine-like” features which help support portable readership Subscription models to recoup losses from decline Industry support transferable to electronic environment

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www.kaufmanwills.comCara S. Kaufman, Partner

Alma J. Wills, Partner

Kaufman-Wills Group, LLC

24 Aintree Road

Baltimore, MD 21286

410 821 8035 (ph)

410 821 1654 (fax)

ckaufman@bellatlantic.net

www.kaufmanwills.com

Selected clients Am Acad Ped Am Assoc Immunologists Am Coll Cardiology Am Coll Radiology American Psychiatric Assoc Am Soc Clin Oncology ASPET ASTRO Intl Anesthesia Res Soc NEJM Proj Hope/Hlth Affairs

Alma: former President, Periodicals Div, Williams & Wilkins

Cara: former Publisher, Am Heart Assoc journals, The Lancet