The future of print

1. The future of print Presentation: HighWire Press October 23, 2003 Cara S. Kaufman

2. Is print on the decline? Is the future completely digital?If so, how significant is the trend? • Librarians • Subscription agents • Publishers • Publications

3. From librarians • UCLA: Watershed year • St. Vincent’s: I'm looking to cut my print collection in half but increase my electronic access 10 fold. I'll spend the same $ but increase my collection • U TX: Our online holdings are already about 5 times what our print holdings are • Johns Hopkins: Moving to online only • Dartmouth: 2004 will see acceleration of libraries’ move to providing many journals in one format only: digital. Usage stats show that users prefer digital format over print • UCSD: In most cases, we are proposing to cancel the print version of a title while retaining electronic access

4. From subscription agents • Major subscription agent expects to lose 1/3 of their STM print journal business by the end of 2004 • Role of subscription agent likely to be further minimized • Agents generally unable to intermediate e-subscriptions • Small - medium publishers will lose more market share • Larger publishers to negotiate directly with libraries • Libraries will find it worth negotiating directly because of title collections

5. From the literature • Meta-analysis (Council on Library and Information Resources) • Personal subscriptions to journals continue to decrease • Users rely more on electronic subscriptions subsidized by library • Publisher survey • 4 out of 10 libraries are planning to drop print and expensive journals in 2004, in favor of the electronic version • Library budgets basically static; e-collections and e-budgets will increase--funding coming from other (print) materials • Larger research libraries have either made the step from print to electronic or they are contemplating it • Smaller libraries are following in kind, and certainly they are relying more heavily on inter-library loan. • American Library Association • Question not whether electronic publishing will continue to grow in importance but rather how quickly it will displace print • Library newsletter • “No One Uses Them So Why Should We Keep Them?”

6. Capital budget constraints at universities Reducing storage costs by reducing shelf space Shrinking public-state library budgets Above inflation subscription rate hikes Closing hospital libraries Increasing user comfort with online resources Researcher-friendly features and functionality Supplemental content available only online Demand for aggregated e-content (“one-stop shopping”) Institutional site licenses Greater availability of unbundled subscriptions Buying power of consortia Big Deal discounts offered by large publishers No international airmail or air freight charges Incremental production savings without print Rapid publication, instant delivery Drivers

7. Who’s most affected? • Trend toward online only most accelerated in science, less so in clinical medicine • Scientists need to access databases for their jobs, and have ready access to the Internet. • Clinicians want answers to questions for patients they are treating, not lists of search results. • In the humanities, paper has more allure • As of yet, texts not as readily available as in the sciences • 75% of students across disciplines access journals online but the percentage drops to 68.5% of arts and humanities students • Arts and humanities respondents do not feel as comfortable with electronic information as respondents in social sciences, engineering, and business • Faculty and student behavior • 75% of faculty and graduate students prefer e-journals over their print counterparts • 85% of faculty and graduate students prefer to access e-journals from their desktop, rather than the library • 30% of students never access print in the library

8. Depends on… • Proportion of small/medium journal v bigger journals in portfolio • Small and medium journals likely to feel the market squeeze • Bigger journals, and bigger publishers, grab market share with title aggregation, big deals, consortia sales • Percentage of member v institution sales—less impact with more members, greater impact with more institutions • How strong are the “golden handcuffs” of society members—so that they renew as members and continue to get print journal • How much in demand journals are for library collections • Specialty areas covered by journals—less impact in humanities, greater impact in science • Publisher policies • Continuing to bundle if market supportive • Adding “magazine-like” features which help support portable readership • Subscription models to recoup losses from decline • Industry support transferable to electronic environment

9. Cara S. Kaufman, Partner Alma J. Wills, Partner Kaufman-Wills Group, LLC 24 Aintree Road Baltimore, MD 21286 410 821 8035 (ph) 410 821 1654 (fax) ckaufman@bellatlantic.net www.kaufmanwills.com Selected clients Am Acad Ped Am Assoc Immunologists Am Coll Cardiology Am Coll Radiology American Psychiatric Assoc Am Soc Clin Oncology ASPET ASTRO Intl Anesthesia Res Soc NEJM Proj Hope/Hlth Affairs Alma: former President, Periodicals Div, Williams & Wilkins Cara: former Publisher, Am Heart Assoc journals, The Lancet www.kaufmanwills.com