Academic publishing
The development of the printing press represented a revolution for communicating the latest hypotheses and research results to the academic community and supplemented what a scholar could do personally. But this improvement in the efficiency of communication created a challenge for libraries which have had to accommodate the weight and volume of literature.
To understand the scale of the problem it can be pointed that approximately two centuries ago the number of scientific papers published annually was doubling every fifteen years. Today, the number of published papers doubles about every ten years. Modern academics can now run electronic journals and distribute academic materials without the need for publishers. Not surprisingly, publishers perceive this emancipation as a serious threat to their business. In reality, the interests of scholars and publishers have long been in conflict.
Today, publishing academic journals and textbooks is a large part of an international industry. The shares of the major publishing companies are listed on national stock exchanges and management policies must satisfy the dividend expectations of international shareholders. Critics claim that these standardized accounting and profit-oriented policies have come to the fore and now constrain more altruistic leanings. In contrast to the commercial model, there is non-profit publishing, where the publishing organization is either organised specifically for the purpose of publishing, such as a university press, or is one of the functions of an organisation such as a medical charity, founded to achieve specific practical goals. An alternative approach to the corporate model is open access, the online distribution of individual articles and academic journals without charge to readers and libraries.
Tags: Academic, Academic publishing, Publishing