The Scholarly Kitchen

So, here it is, the idiotically named iPad. And it seems that it could annoy me.

First, the design completely misses a huge opportunity, captured beautifully by Lenovo in a forthcoming competing product — namely, the ability to become a notebook computer.

Second, no Flash support. Suddenly, what was a remote nuisance in the iPhone will become a major headache with the iPad. The best device to browse the Web? Nope. That device would support Flash.

Third, no camera. Half the fun of portable devices is having a portable camera in order to enter the social network space with new or weird or funny photographic observations. Well, you’ll have to use your iPhone or Droid to do that. Annoying.

Fourth, no way I’m taking that thing to a beach or bathroom (so it fails 2/3 of the 3B test for portable devices — bed, beach, bathroom). It’s too pretty to use except in my most sedate and sanitary environments. So, give me a fugly Kindle in a baggie for the beach, and I’ll be just fine, thanks.

Fifth, more AT&T tie-in, with no promises of fixing the apparently well-documented iP(hone/ad) reliability issues when it comes to 3G.

Basically, the iPad should have been:

1. Designed to be detachable from a fully functioning notebook base, to provide ultimate utility
2. Built to solve the long-standing Flash compatibility issues with these devices, especially since its purpose and dimensions will put these issues front and center
3. Given a camera, so it would actually be able to contribute to social networking’s charm
4. Built with a more industrial feel, so I wouldn’t feel so innately protective of it, and therefore less willing to integrate it fully into my life
5. Allowed to connect to any cell provider, or shipped only once the AT&T connectivity issues were solved

But, instead, we get a lovely device that just magnifies the limitations of the iPhone.

That’s kind of annoying.

Definition: "Subscription"

Reacting to controversy over it’s use of the phrase “subscription-like” to describe the new financial business model for the arXiv eprint repository, the Cornell University Library is now using “collaborative support model” in its place.

Whatever the model is called, it will still rely on annual payments by member libraries to support the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of the arXiv.  What’s interesting is why “subscription” has become such a dirty and untouchable word for some.

Open Access publishers such as PLoS, BioMed Central, Hindawi, and Bentham all offer supporting institutional “memberships” — annual fees paid by the library in return for a reduction in article processing charges for their authors.

The Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity uses the term “underwriting” to describe the financial support for paying article processing fees, and many user-supported organizations, like National Public Radio rely on “donations” and “annual pledge drives.”

“Subscription” has a number of different meanings, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. One of its meanings has to do with the collaborative nature of fundraising:

The action or an act of subscribing money to a fund or for stock; the raising of a sum of money for a certain object by collecting contributions from a number of people

That sounds very much like a “collaborative support model.”  Publishers, librarians, and subscription agents, however, think of “subscription” in more transactional terms, where money is traded for some kind of product or service, such as:

A contribution of money for a specified object; spec. the fixed sum promised or required as a periodical contribution by a member of a society, etc. to its funds, or for the purchase of a periodical publication

But when does a donation become a subscription?  According to the OED, subscriptions are merely recurring donations:

Subscription and donation (to a charitable fund, a society, or the like) are usually contrasted, the former being a recurrent, the latter a single, contribution.

So if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, why is calling the arXiv business model a “duck” (or even “duck-like”) so problematic?

The answer may be a combination of legal and political reasons.

In many states, public and state-supported libraries are often forbidden by state law to make “donations” to any organization (political or otherwise) for which they do not receive some product or service in kind.  (Libraries at private institutions have much more leeway in how they spend collection funds.)  Retaining the support of public and state-supported libraries may revolve around the kind of language used in the arXiv business model.

The second reason may be political.  The subscription-access model for journal publishing has been repeatedly called “unsustainable” by open access advocates.  Some individuals, such as Stuart Shieber, go as far as to use the phrase “closed-access” synonymously with “subscription.”  It would seem contradictory for an icon of the open access movement to adopt a model it vociferously attacks.

But there is a distinction here that should not be ignored.  The arXiv business model is a support model, not an access model. The fact that the library is relying on peer libraries to make recurrent annual donations to support a highly valued information service for scientists sounds just like what subscriptions are designed to do — provide a predictable and stable source of income, without which running a dependable organization becomes extremely difficult.

As a frequent user of the arXiv, I want this service to have a successful and long-term future.  If the Cornell University Library is no longer able to support this service on its own, I have no problem with them looking for new sources of financial support.  Considering the alternatives — such as article-processing fees or reader-access models — a subscription model may be the best solution.

To shy away from the term “subscription” just seems a little disingenuous.

Steve Jobs gave the commencement address at Stanford University a few years ago. You can watch it, below. I didn’t know some of these biographical details (e.g., as an adopted kid myself, I was immediately grabbed by his own adoption story). You might identify with various themes in this honest, hopeful, and ultimately transcendent address:

Have a fun, hopeful Friday!

Unless you live in a cave (and a cave without a wireless connection at that), you’re probably aware that Apple announced their long-awaited, much-hyped tablet computer yesterday, officially dubbed the “iPad.”   Full technical specs and details are available from Apple, and ArsTechnica has a good summary.

Some initial impressions are below, and I’m hoping this post will serve as a conversation space for our readers to post their thoughts in the comments.

First, I think that the vast majority of the tech press and online commenters seem to be completely missing the point.  There’s persistent lamentation about this or that laptop feature that the iPad is missing.  If you need the full features of a laptop, the iPad is not for you.  This is a different product, meant to fill a different niche.  The question Jobs asked during his presentation was, “Is there room for a third category of device in the middle? Something that’s between a laptop and smartphone.”

Right now that category is being filled by netbooks, which, as Jobs notes, are just really cheap, crappy notebooks.  They aren’t specialized for this niche — they just do the same things as notebooks, only more slowly and not as well.  There are certainly people who need notebooks and instead buy netbooks because they cost less and this makes up for the drawbacks of cheap tech.  But there’s a huge market buying netbooks because they just want an inexpensive device to do simple tasks like answer e-mail, browse the internet, update their Facebook pages, and watch video.

That’s the target audience for the iPad.

For about the minimum price for a decent laptop, you can soon (the iPad should be selling in March) get a device that’s designed for those needs and provides an allegedly better user experience.  It’s not meant to replace laptops — it’s meant to create a new level somewhere below a laptop for those with lesser needs.

That said, I can’t justify buying one. I’m one of those people mentioned above who needs the power of a full-fledged laptop.  If I’m in a situation where the laptop isn’t usable, then my iPhone will suffice until I can get to a more powerful machine, and because my iPhone’s so small, I always have it with me for my real basic computing activities.  Essentially, my needs are either too advanced or too primitive for this device.

Since this is a publishing blog, the real big news may actually be Apple’s new iBookstore. Details on the store are sparse so far, which makes it hard to comment.  What’s the DRM situation? What’s the actual file format (Jobs did say it uses ePub, but is it some modified version)?  How easy will it be to convert XML, PDF, or Quark files?  What is the business arrangement?  How much control over pricing do publishers have?  Will the iBookstore and products be available for iPhones and iPod Touch’s as well (77 million of these in the wild, by the way)?  Will there be a Google Books app? These questions need to be answered before we can discuss much further.

But this does seem to be a nail in Kindle’s coffin.  Why spend $489 on a Kindle DX when you can spend $10 more and get so much more functionality in an iPad?  And what of Amazon’s Kindle app?  Assuming it will translate to the iPad, Amazon then becomes just another bookstore selling e-books for a variety of devices, and this certainly takes a lot of the wind out of their sails as far as dictating terms to publishers (particularly because the Kindle app is so far behind many other e-reader apps).

Take note that even though Amazon sells the same music downloads as Apple, and usually offers them at a better price, they still only make up about 8% of the market to Apple’s 70%.  This shows the power of having the content store built-in to your device, and the reason Amazon tried so hard to create their own lock-in for the Kindle.

As an editor for a niche publisher of scientific manuals, textbooks, and monographs, we’re likely to be better served by an e-book store that doesn’t penalize us for having to price our books higher than $9.99.  We sell to a small market, and our books require heavy editing.  There’s no way we could survive at that price point because our audience simply isn’t big enough to make up for it with increased sales.  If Amazon is going to keep the vast majority of the revenue on books that sell for more than $9.99, then there’s no point offering our books through the Kindle Store.  If Apple’s iBookstore works the same way their App Store does, they’ll be price agnostic, offering the same terms regardless, which makes it a much more attractive prospect.

One other potential loser here is Microsoft Office.  Between the free Google Docs and Apple’s new version of iWorks priced at $10 per app, how many people are going to need an expensive, full-fledged Office suite?  Okay, probably a lot, but there’s also a large number of people who buy it because it’s the market standard and don’t use 95% of its functionality.  As these simpler, cheaper alternatives see more use, Microsoft stands to see one of their main economic pillars begin to erode away.

More as more details become available, please share your thoughts below.

Traditionally, the first day of the Software & Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) Information Industry Summit (IIS) ends with a panel of executives looking into the future.  This year, Jim K0llegger, CEO of Genesys Partners, moderated a panel that included:

• Dick Harrington, Chairman and General Partner, The  Cue Ball Group (and former Thomson Reuters CEO)
• Andrew Lack, CEO Multimedia Group, Bloomberg
• Mark Anderson, CEO Strategic News Service
• David Eun, VP Strategic Partnerships, YouTube

The panel covered all of the major topics: business models, advertising, user behavior, device convergence, and a bit of history.  Jim started the discussions by asking Dick Harrington how he came to the conclusion that he should sell off Thomson’s news business in the late 1990s (when it was still able to fetch a price of $4.4 billion).

According to Dick, they made that decision in 1997 but “it took a year to get nerve up to tell the board we were selling news.” Dick and his management team saw the potential for Web-related advertising to erode their business.  They also looked at eBay and felt it would impact classified advertising sales in such a way that Thomson could not compete.  Dick reported to the board that content was no longer king and that Thomson needed to drive everything toward an electronic model.  The real story would be information, software, and solutions.  “We needed to focus our business . . . [on] activity-based workflows and the content and tools that could drive that.”

Andy Lack’s experiences at Bloomberg were quite different.  Andy described a “journalistic army” of thousands of reporters that feed the 300,000  global professional subscribers to Bloomberg terminals. Content is most definitely king at Bloomberg.

In yet a third, and very different situation, David Eun described how he has been charged with working out a business model for YouTube.  At the time it was acquired, YouTube was losing $500 million a year related to servicing its ever increasing volume. To put that volume into perspective, David quoted some statistics: 1 billion views a day, 20 hours of video viewed every minute, every two months more video is uploaded to YouTube than has been broadcast by the top three US television networks in the past 60 years.

The first order of business was securing the infrastructure and making sure YouTube continued to be accessible and easy to use.

Now, it’s time to figure out a business model that “stimulates the ecosystem.  We want to get money into people’s hands so that they can produce more content.”

Mark Anderson was definitely the futurist of the group.  He started his introduction with the question, “If you ask your kids if they are you going to pay for media in the future, they’ll say no.” Admittedly, you could feel the audience cringe at that.  He went on to say that those kids will get to the place in their lives and work when they’ll have a different attitude about paying.  As they come into the workforce, they will pay for value. At least, that’s what many publishers are betting.  He went on to say that we’re now witnessing a move from free to paid. “The trend is unmistakable – it’s a way from free.”

David had a slightly different view.  Ultimately, he said, everyone pays “either with your money or with your time – your attention.”  He believes that advertising can work, and that the opportunity is there to put the right ad in front of the right person at the right time.

David even commented on the fact that there are different cost structures and different business models.  Organizations need to allow a choice of what content falls under which business model.  It could be that one content offering is free to the user and supported by ads, another version is available for rent for a certain period, and still another version is available for direct purchase or as part of a subscription. There are no easy answers.

The panelists seemed to agree that the real key to a business model is that you have to have the right product to service the segment.  Once again, in what appeared to be the unspoken theme of the day, this panel came back to customization — give me what I want, when and where I need it, and be able to anticipate those needs accurately.

“The youngsters continue to consume more and more media than we ever did, and it’s increasingly electronic.”

I wrote this placeholder sentence fully anticipating that the study I’d just uncovered online was going to tell me about amazing new trends in smartphone usage and increased immersion in laptop computers.

But it turns out that the major driver of media consumption among kids isn’t the nearly ubiquitous computer, but the truly ubiquitous television. Or, rather, television programming.

I should have realized it, because I next hunkered down for many hours to watch the NFL playoffs. And while the entire family enjoyed the games together (especially the exciting Saints-Vikings contest), it turns out that parenting styles drive a lot of kids’ information consumption habits. I felt a guilt trip coming on.

Hey, even good parents like the playoffs!

But the message is clear — parents make a difference. For instance, the Kaiser Foundation study of media consumption among 8- to 18-year-olds found that major drivers of excess media consumption were:

• a television in a child’s bedroom
• a television that’s left on as an ambient presence
• a lack of rules about time spent in front of screens

Television continues to be the dominant form of media consumed. Even with information-capable devices, television programming does well, with shifts to DVRs, cell phones, and laptops grabbing new spots in kids’ lives. In fact, live TV watching is down 25 minutes on average since the prior iteration of this study (2004), with viewing on DVDs, time-shifted TV, and other sources more than making it up.

So the computers are there, nibbling away at the edges. Cell phone use among kids  jumped from 39% to 66% between 2004 and 2009, and MP3/iPod ownership surged from 18% to 76% as well.

On the computer, kids are spending most of their time using social networking sites.

Of course, print takes a drubbing, with books being the only printed media that’s received more use (up from 23 minutes per day in 2004 to 25 minutes in 2009). Magazines usage fell from 14 to 9 minutes per day, and newspapers fell from 6 minutes to 3 minutes per day.

One part of the Kaiser study focused on the well-being of young media consumers, and finds that — well, what it finds is downright confusing, as most of these cause-effect inferences are. USA Today does a nice job of teasing out the difficulties,  which include:

• Are kids who use more media less happy because of it, or are less happy kids more likely to use media?
• While isolation may come with media use, kids who use more media say they have more friends
• While a sedentary lifestyle might come from using more media, kids who use more media say they exercise more

It’s really hard to figure out the effects of media consumption. But one slide caught my eye in the Kaiser set and set me to wondering — it was the one portraying differences between ethnic groups. Look at these differences in media exposure per day by ethnicity (using Kaiser’s ethnicity terms):

• White kids — 8 hours 36 minutes
• Black kids — 12 hours 59 minutes
• Hispanic kids — 13 hours 0 minutes

The survey also asked about the parents’ educational attainment, and the full report reveals two consistent trends:

1. Parents with “some college” had kids who consumed electronic media at the highest rates, print at the lowest rates
2. Parents with “college+” had kids who consumed electronic media at the lowest rates and print at the highest rates
3. Parents with “no college” had kids who consumed electronic more than “college+” kids and less than “some college” kids, and were similarly mid-tier for print

I guess what surprises me most about this study is that socioeconomic status wasn’t teased out. I’ll wager that the two items above mean that richer kids consume less media, have more social advantages, have more scheduled physical activities, and have more parental oversight. The authors talk about generational differences, but I think there’s a more important socioeconomic reality here that the Kaiser folks didn’t probe sufficiently.

While all media consumption is pretty passive, television is very passive. That passivity may matter.

Overall, it’s a good study to look over and understand, and the trending is really interesting, but for scholarly publishers, the results need to be taken with a grain of salt. Our audiences fall into the “college+” tier. While their parents are moving to electronic as a productivity enhancer, the kids are adopting it a bit more guardedly than other groups. And they’ll be all the more media-savvy for it.

It’s been a classic case of misappropriation, the cries of “information wants to be free” echoing Stuart Brand’s 1984 speech at the Hackers’ Conference. This single misbegotten touchstone has driven initiatives and perceptions as information has moved online. But, as we all know, it’s an incomplete (and, therefore, incorrect) quote. The actual quote is:

On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.

Brand sensed a tension between the value of information and the falling costs of distributing it. Because we conflated the value of the information with the expense of finished goods and distribution when print was the best package, finding the value of the information outside of print was going to be a bit of a challenge.

Ultimately, information is valuable, and therefore should cost money.

Nicholas Carr puts it a bit more bluntly in a post entitled, “Information Wants to Be Free My Ass”:

Never before in history have people paid as much for information as they do today.

He’s absolutely right — from the fees you  pay for Internet access to the price of that desktop computer and monitor to the price of that Kindle to the price of your iPhone to the price of the apps to the price of the digital music, we’ve shifted forms of finished goods and distribution, yet the amount most people pay for information has gone up, not down.

Instead of paying for paper, we’re paying for pixels, bandwidth, devices, and customization.

It may be the age of abundance, but that doesn’t mean information is free.

Charging for information is a clear-cut way to know how valuable it is. Mitch Joel talks about this in a recent blog post inspired by the New York Times’ recent announcement of its metered payment approach.

Yet, the landscape has shifted dramatically as to who makes the money. As the chart below from Gizmodo shows, we’re paying more on subscription fees than we might think. The subscription model is clearly thriving. The problem for publishers is that subscriptions to their old packages are losing value and appeal, and the notion of an annual subscription is outmoded.

Some common subscription fees many of us pay each month.

Publishers used to be masters of the subscription model, but now our subscriptions have become cumbersome and clunky. Since we sell annual subscriptions, the trend is to drive prices annual down in the consumer space, almost to suicidal levels. Yet when the Huffington Post went on the Kindle, it charged $1.99 per month — about three times the annual cost of a print subscription to Wired was last year (thanks to Wired‘s overly aggressive pricing practices). The Huffington Post delivers nothing but pixels, and to an expensive device. Yet thousands were happy to pay — after all, $1.99 per month is next to nothing.

And this is ultimately how the “information wants to be expensive/free” dichotomy gets resolved — by letting information find its proper price point in systems that let transactions flow.

Finding that price point means picking the right path to success. More and more often, that path is paved with smaller monthly payments, until-forbid renewals, and term contracts. The old paradigm of annual subscriptions and 4-pre/2-post renewal notices feels creaky and vulnerable.

Subscriptions are thriving all around us, yet we continue with old practices or move slowly to change standard approaches.

I feel like we continue to be trapped in a construct that rests on three key misconceptions:

• Information wants to be free
• Individuals won’t pay for subscriptions
• The subscription model is dead anyhow

How high a priority is the subscription model in your organization’s commercial strategy? Because of this framework or something like it, are we even equipped to detect the subscription’s proper place as a user preferences? I’ve heard stories of publishers actively downplaying or ignoring subscription revenues, dismissing them even though they’re substantial, even growing. It’s probably because they’re blinded by a framework that seems more convincing than the evidence right in front of their noses.

If individual subscriptions aren’t a priority, how can we find the new sweet spot? Will we invest the energy and systems necessary to disrupt our own model? Or is this a possible Achilles’ heel, something that gives the likes of Amazon a distinct business advantage?

Clearly, the subscription model is changing. Instead of annual subscriptions, we’re moving to monthly or even weekly subscriptions. Instead of renewal series, users want to keep paying until they stop. Instead of annual commitments, users are willing to commit for longer periods if the deal is right.

Publishers need to acknowledge these changes in their models.

We might want to reassess the subscription model. After all, there’s plenty of evidence that it still works, and is in fact an increasingly popular way to pay for access to valuable information.

The Kindle has been a misfit since the beginning, albeit a beguiling and ultimately paradigm-shifting one. Amazon’s entry into hardware always seemed a bit awkward and unlikely. After all, Amazon’s story has been about creating an electronic storefront more than anything else, and I’ve always felt that launching the Kindle was just a way to extend their electronic storefront in a forward-looking manner, even if it meant taking a loss on the cellular and hardware.

Now, with the build-up mounting to the seemingly inevitable Apple e-reading device, speculation abounds that two recent moves from Amazon — increasing author royalties from 30% to 70% for e-content and launching a software development kit (SDK) and app store for the Kindle — signal that Amazon is transitioning the Kindle in a manner that suggests that Amazaon is giving up on the Kindle and conceding the hardware battle to a company much better-suited for it, namely Apple.

By creating an SDK, Amazon is hoping developers create applications for the Kindle, making its transition to an Apple environment more robust, to Amazon’s benefit. And by increasing royalties, Amazon is solidifying loyalty and lock-in to its storefront.

It’s the business moves of Google and Barnes & Noble that have been cutting off Amazon’s options. By moving in a non-proprietary manner, Google and B&N have make ubiquity a strength, transforming Amazon’s proprietary approach into a weakness. And while ArsTechnica’s excellent analysis of this mentions that Apple may lock Amazon out, it’s unlikely. Amazon’s Kindle app is already on the iPhone and iTouch, so even if Apple contemplated it, such a move may already be too late.

Display technology has also advanced more quickly than anticipated, making e-ink readers much less interesting than they were initially. Apple’s much-rumored iSlate is supposed to be very thin, full-color, and touch-sensitive. With crisp, high-resolution text on a carefully calibrated user interface, it will probably make e-ink look frumpy and old-fashioned.

I haven’t been following this blow-by-blow, I have to admit. I recently left my Kindle behind as part of changing jobs, and am waiting for Apple’s announcement before making another foray into the e-reader market. It strikes my intuition that there’s a sea change about to take place, somehow, someway. This market is too hot for it to stay this stable for this long.

What’s interested me more is how this area has heated up so precipitously in the past year, going from a geeky backwater to an area of huge investment, major plays, and fevered speculation.

Who knew content could be so sexy?

It’s official: the most celebrated open access eprint repository — the arXiv –  is moving to a “subscription-like” business model beginning this year.

The news, released Thursday by the Cornell University Library, is accompanied by an FAQ and detailed arXiv Business Model White Paper.

Like most academic libraries, the Cornell University Library, which has hosted the arXiv since 2001, has experienced significant economic hardships and is looking for ways to defray costs.  Their short-term (three-year) plan is to ask libraries of the heaviest user institutions (based on their number of downloads) to make small annual contributions to keep the resource going.  This does not really fit the definition of “subscription,” since access will not be turned off for any institution that does not pay the fee, nor will it prevent individuals from uploading documents.  It’s more in line with a National Public Radio model of fund-raising, although the white paper is careful not to use words like “charity” or “donation” and there is no offer of a coffee mug or tote.

The arXiv’s long-term business plan is not yet set, although hints of what it may look like include support from academic libraries and research centers, societies, endowments, and government grants from agencies such as the National Science Foundation.  The arXiv received an $883,000 stimulus grant last year for updates and improvements to the service.

Undoubtedly, the announcement of a new funding model for the arXiv comes at a poor time, when many academic libraries are facing severe budget cuts.  Still, 22 of the top 25 heaviest users have already pledged support, according to their news release.

While this sounds as if fund-raising will be a simple matter, the total contributions from these 22 institutions amount to only $88,000 if they are paying the recommended $4,000/year pledge.  The arXiv currently costs $400,000/year, with costs projected to reach $500,000 in 2012.

Getting donation pledges from institutions further down the user list may be much more difficult, considering that their users will not lose any services from the arXiv.  In addition, the business plan makes no mention of the additional time and resources needed to manage annual billing and payments for a subscription-like service.

The business plan both explains and promotes the arXiv and its effect on scholarly communication:

arXiv has been one of the most important disruptive innovations in scholarly communications since the advent of the Internet. Its preemptive dissemination model represented the first significant means to provide expedited access to scientific research well ahead of formal publication. It remains an exemplar in the open-access debate.

And yet, the model of charging libraries seems quite traditional for supporting an open access service when alternative models charge authors or their funding agencies for support.  Many readers may also take issue with whether the arXiv has truly disrupted scientific publishing (as Michael Clarke wrote recently), or whether eprints and journal articles share a “productive co-existence.”

When the arXiv moved from Los Alamos Labs to Cornell University, its placement in the library was seen as a commitment to the long-term stability of the arXiv.  In 2008, before the financial crash, Anne Kenney, Cornell’s University Librarian, remarked on the success of the service:

[the arXiv] represents an incredible model for scholarly communication that transcends borders, publishers and time. We bring operational stability and a demonstrated track record of stewardship to this invaluable open-access resource.

Reacting to the recent change in the arXiv’s business model, Ann Okerson, Associate University Librarian at Yale University, feels that the library’s move reflects ordinary growing pains for any successful service:

One day we realize that the puppy we brought home from the pound turned into a cross between a Great Dane and a Mastiff. How to feed and care for it? We’re still missing reliable models for that.

Fred Dylla, Executive Director and CEO of the American Institute of Physics, has optimism for the future of the arXiv, although the change does send a clear message to all stakeholders that high-value scholarly publishing cannot be done on the cheap:

This development sends an important message to the all sides of the scholarly publications community: a scholarly publications service requires a sustainable commitment of income and professional resources.  I’m sure that Cornell will be up to the challenge.

Jerry Cowhig, Managing Director of IOP Publishing in the UK, praised the library and its service with an offer of support:

Cornell Library deserves appreciation for its continued custodianship of the arXiv, an indispensable resource in physics. We hope the library will find partners to support them in moving it forward. We at IOP would be pleased to collaborate in any way that is helpful.

Recently, Michael Clarke published a memorable post here entitled, “Why Hasn’t Scientific Publishing Been Disrupted Already?” Michael’s arguments were carefully constructed and logical. It’s an excellent post.

And while at first I didn’t realize it, I now think the observations may rest on a different definition of disruption than I’m used to. And as I thought it through a bit more, I could see a different explanation, an alternative interpretation of the same observations.

Michael identified five traits of scientific publishing, using scholarly journals as a proxy. Two of these traits (dissemination and registration) started the whole thing, while three emerged later and inform the value of journals today:

1. Dissemination
2. Registration
3. Validation
4. Filtration
5. Designation

Because journals persist, and no alternative has yet supplanted the journal format — primarily because the act of designation is so integral to scholarly career advancement — Michael argued that journals haven’t yet been disrupted, and therefore scientific publishing hasn’t been disrupted.

But disruption isn’t about displacement of the finished goods — it’s about displacement of the incumbents providing the finished goods and their processes for arriving at the finished goods. To use examples from Clayton Christensen’s original book on the topic, steel mini-mills didn’t disrupt by supplanting steel; they disrupted the incumbents by creating a more efficient, more modern, less expensive process for making steel. They did this by starting with the stuff the big companies thought could be ignored (steel bars) and used those meager profits to create an improvement trajectory (of know-how and equipment and markets) that led to the supplanting the incumbents on many fronts. But they still made steel.

Disruption is about blowing apart the provider side, not the consumable or the customer landscape.

Toyota didn’t disrupt GM by making cars obsolete. It accomplished it by making cars in a manner that was more efficient and effective and economical, slowly acquiring marketshare from the bottom-up, gaining customers through segments the high-end incumbents like GM and Chrysler thought were unimportant or insufficiently profitable.

Viewed through this lens, it’s clear that journals aren’t subject to disruption — as long as scholars value them for whatever reason and in whatever format, the “journal” will be around. Journals will go away when they fail to provide value. That won’t be disruption but irrelevance. How they’re made and who makes them — those are activities that can be disrupted.

So the question is really, Is disruption happening on the provider side?

Clearly, the answer is yes.

Look at the library. Before journals went online, libraries were central to the dissemination of journals in academic centers. Some of the savvier librarians have found ways to thrive in the midst of disruptive changes, but with many libraries being converted into education centers or otherwise taken over by other academic departments, it’s clear that this provider of information has been disrupted by the likes of Google and the other major search engines, combined with the online availability of content.

The librarians who are still flourishing have been more willing to take risks, and arguably possess more foresight than some of their peers. This is important.

But what about the publishers? Why haven’t they been turned into scrawny husks of their former selves, with hot new companies sidling up to dance with their dates?

To me, it’s entirely feasible that the main reason scientific publishing hasn’t been disrupted could be attributed to the fact that many of us read Christensen’s book or listened to the disruption gurus or somehow absorbed the lessons of disruptive innovation.

Add this to the fact that we live in a very supportive industry, where competition isn’t as fierce and cut-throat as steel mills or automobile manufacturers, and you can see how disruption could be bent to our collective will, even through osmosis. An academic sense of shared learning permeates scientific publishing, an empiricism blending with cooperation and communication, so an entire culture of publishers has been moving together through these changes.

Basically, I think publishers have been disrupting themselves, making it less likely that disruptors from below could sneak in and surprise them.

From Nature to Science to Elsevier to the American Institute of Physics to the New England Journal of Medicine to Health Affairs to Wolters-Kluwer to Springer to BMJ to JBC to arXiv to PLoS — a broad swath of incumbents of various stripes have been disrupting themselves more or less simultaneously, learning from each other, experimenting avidly.

Now, you could also claim that we’re in a consolidated industry with deep interdependencies on even slower-moving academic institutions, so much so that disruption for us will be more like erosion than earthquake.

But to me, it’s possible this industry learned the lessons Christensen taught, and has acted upon them. More importantly, it’s been able to do it in a manner that allowed nearly everyone to avoid the mistakes of arrogance and incumbency. By so doing, new entrants have emerged, but their effects have been integrated into existing brands and businesses.

From the outside, we may not look that disrupted, but in fact we’ve absorbed the disruptions (so far) rather nicely.

Scientific publishing is changing fundamentally. But instead of waiting for a new entrant to do it, scientific publishing has been disrupting itself.