Libraries, Publishing and Disintermediation

[MrsJoseph]

Interesting Article from here discussing the possiblity disintermediation of libraries as well as publishers.

Library bypass is a publishing strategy in which a publisher that has traditionally sold most or all of its products to libraries begins to find ways to sell things directly to individuals, some of whom may have been library patrons. This is a form of disintermediation: the library sits in the middle between the publisher and the reader or end-user, and the publisher tries to go around the library. The point of that post was that publishers were developing library bypass strategies because libraries were telling them that they were out of funds; they could not buy what the publishers wanted to sell.

[SNIP]

What we have seen with open access publishing is that publishers, rather than being disintermediated, are learning how to coopt it. With open access publishing, libraries have succeeded in disintermediating themselves.

[SNIP]

In the book world, there are signs that publishers are indeed being disintermediated; the question is how exceptional are these instances of disintermediation. An established mystery writer named Joe Konrath decided to move his books over to Amazon’s self-publishing service because of the promise of earning higher royalties. I doubt that there is a trade publisher in the world who has not been following Konrath’s career closely, praying that he will fail. Even more fascinating is the case of a young woman named Amanda Hocking, who came to self-publishing with no prior publishing experience. Her young adult novels earned her a small fortune, attracting the interest of major commercial publishers, one of which has now signed up Hocking to a million-dollar contract. One emerging pattern seems to be that publishers are initially threatened with disintermediation, whether through open access or self-publishing services, and then find a way to reinsert themselves into the value chain. Having a big checkbook helps.

Rather than think of disintermediation as the collapse or shrinking of the value chain, we should probably think of it as a new way to re-create the value of the value chain. Hocking, for example, understood that traditional publishers create demand for books through their marketing arrangements; she then set out to create her own marketing network through an aggressive use of social media, which just happens to be the favorite form of communication among her young readership. In the open access world, publishers know that authors enjoy the value of peer review; thus rather than set up repositories that provide no rigorous editorial filters, the new open access services are determined to retain strict editorial procedures. We can disintermediate certain links in the chain, but it is very hard to eliminate the value embodied in those links.

[Giggleton]

Yes, it does seem that these publishers and libraries, as keepers of the flame for so long have gotten it into their heads that this is how it has been and will always be, most certainly not the case.

Disintermediation? Interesting that most definitions of the word are from economics, the transfer of monies into more profitable systems.

When we finally abandon copyright, can you just imagine the restructuring!!