The future of academic publishing: Revolution or evolution revisited

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of key trends affecting the academic publishing industry. It reviews funding and sales, scholarly collaboration networks, developments in OA, and monograph publishing. These key areas were identified in an earlier article that asked whether academic publishing was evolving or going through a revolution. The review of funding and sales presented here shows a mixed market with growth being challenged as library funds and purchase choices affect expenditure. Scholarly collaboration networks were previously identified as a major threat to traditional publishing, and a review of this area demonstrates that greater sharing of content is empowering librarians and academics to take a stronger stand in publisher negotiations. OA continues to be debated, and a review of responses to Plan S (the most coordinated policy to date) demonstrates conflicting views within academia, funders, and publishers. OA has yet to revolutionize the existing business models. Similarly, monograph publishing remains slow to evolve, although there are increasing initiatives to adopt more open, and online, models. The conclusion of this review is that libraries are likely to be the key promoters of change in the publishing environment and are more influential than other players in forcing evolution.