The Tyranny of Amusements — Science, Spectacle, and the Lowly PDF
Do scholarly and scientific publishers risk more than they realize when they embrace modern media spectacle and seek to marginalize the PDF?
Do scholarly and scientific publishers risk more than they realize when they embrace modern media spectacle and seek to marginalize the PDF?
Journals as communication vehicles that bind communities of practice are still important and well-regarded, but there are external forces changing them and our industry, along with a rising level of neglect, which may mean a harder future for them than ever. What might we lose? And how does this explain why change is so slow in coming?
Would adding a big flatscreen TV to my office might make a difference? Yes, in big and important ways.
We ask our authors to gaze into their crystal balls regarding the future of print.
Is print dead, or just demoted? This video shows that it, and its advocates, won’t go down without a fight.
The question of when print will end is often framed as if it is a natural occurrence, an evolutionary question, or the likely outcome of a sporting event, rather than a business decision that publishers may revisit on a regular basis.
The failure of the traditional music industry has become the standard cautionary tale for content industries adapting to a digital era. But for scholarly publishers, many factors make the music industry a poor comparison. We have more in common with smaller niche markets. Watching their electronic experimentation and new business models may be more informative as we seek new strategies for presenting and selling content.
As scholarly communication moves from its frankly printer-centric reality of today, publishers will be faced with many more rounds of improvement to their digital information. Is ePub an answer?