Future directions for serials
-- a CSIRO publishing perspective

Paul Reekie

1. Serials will be online products

• 80% within 5 years
• Elsevier already 35%
• Kluwer 5% growing to 30% in 2 years
• CSIRO Publishing currently 10%
• Rock and a hard place

2. Many libraries aiming to be 100% online

• CSIRO within 3 years
• Economic & service quality drivers
• Expectations of all customers?
• Print - an expensive extra

3. The individual paper will rule

• Peer review & quality assurance critical
• Papers will be published when ready
• Journal volumes & issues will disappear
• Subscriptions will be redundant
• Pay-to-view will predominate
• Linking to full text references will be standard practice

4. Current players will continue to be stretched

• Information suppliers vs knowledge managers?
• Collection oriented vs customer service?
• And the currency position looks a long term reality

5. Customer expectations will continue to grow

• Global perspective and need for knowledge
• Under pressure to perform
• Impatient with gaps in their knowledge base
• Technically competent
• More, better, faster!

6. New options will challenge traditional processes

• Traditional information networks & channels not sustainable
• New online channels to deliver information to existing customers
• New customers will surface to use new information channels

Some observations about the market
Four main points:

• Co-operation in the national interest
• Aggregating online information
• Integrating online information
• Opportunity or threat?

Co-operation in the National Interest

• Serious issues facing Australia's
• Requires a coordinated national response

The major issues?

• Declining government support for tertiary sector in general and libraries in particular
• Decade of double digit price increases
• Majority of information imported
• Decline in the dollar relative to US & Europe
• Chronic erosion of library collections
• A small player with limited clout in market
• Researchers constrained from starting new research

It's a Canadian situation

• Notes from a think tank
• Need meets opportunity
• Canadian National Site Licensing Project
• Deb deBruijn, executive director

CNSLP - a model for Australia?

• National issues with viable solutions clearly articulated to government
• Political understanding and will to do something established
• Funding mechanism provided
• Co-operation
• Poised to implement
• Will it work?

Aggregation online information

• Three major options on offer
• Some seriously powerful players
• Advantages & disadvantages with all existing options

Aggregating information - 1st option
Publisher servers

• Elsevier 1100 plus journals - Science Direct
• Academic 300 journals - Ideal
• CSIRO Publishing 17 journals

Major disadvantages

• Variable security, pricing, licenses
• Different navigation
• Limited content to any one publisher

Aggregating information - 2nd option
Library suppliers/aggregators

• RoweCom, Swets/Blackwell, Ebsco, OCLC
• Critical link for libraries & publishers alike

Major disadvantages

• Gateway not content holders - changing!
• Depend on publisher idiosyncrasies

Aggregating information - 3rd option
Major libraries & library consortia

• ScienceServer
• Own/manage content from multiple sources
• Special needs negotiated in licenses

Major disadvantages

• Significant, long-term investment
• Targeted at big players

Integrating online information

• Aggregating & gaining access to large amounts of information not enough
• Not really addressing customer expectations
• Two key initiatives:
• Digital Object Identifiers - DOI
• CrossRef

Digital Object Identifiers

• ISSN, volume & issue not relevant online
• DOI - a method for identifying a paper
• Key concepts: persistent ; granular
• Agreed global standard
• Fundamental to integrating papers

CrossRef

• Co-operative initiative of publishers - currently 60 plus members
• Facilitates link from a journal reference to full-text content using DOI
• Major advantages for end users!
• http://www.crossref.org/

Opportunity or threat? No 1

• End users are sophisticated IT users who will demand more efficient knowledge management
• We had better listen, understand and meet customer expectations or else!

Opportunity or threat? No 2

• Large players have significant resources and you cannot hope to compete
• Work smarter - target specific needs of customers and deliver excellent products or services to them
• Build co-operative networks - strategic alliances, consortia

Opportunity or threat? No 3

• Pay-to-view - a threat?
• Traditional subscription disappears
• Publisher takes on library role for delivery, indexing & archiving
• Small publishers unable to adapt - withdraw from market

Opportunity or threat? No 4

• Pay-to-view - an opportunity?
• Small publishers take up technology & find new customers in process
• Libraries choose pay-to-view to supplement key holdings & provide better support for their customers
• Aggregators add pay-to-view financial management to their range of services for institutions

Conclusion
We all must adapt:

• Serials will be online products
• The individual paper will rule
• Customer expectations will continue to grow
• New options will challenge traditional processes