Evolution and Revolution in Medical Publishing

With the era of open source, micro-blogging, stumbling and tweeting now upon us – I, as an altruistic educator, researcher and medical professional bathe in the warm surge of ‘idealistic’ sharing’ that washes over me…but I have questions…so many questions…

What is the future/role of major publishing companies in light of open access; self-publishing and copyright free electronic information? When we write articles, perform research, write lectures and devise eLearning programmes – how much of this material ‘belongs’ to the author? What constitutes copyright for the educating physician?

There is ‘evolution’ and ‘revolution’ afoot.

Maybe the medical publishing world will mirror the music industry. An interview with Ed O’Brien in the Big Issue summed it up well:

Q: What do you imagine the music industry might look like in a few years, i.e. is it possible to be a successful recording artist in the digital age – especially for young, unkown bands that don’t sell concert tickets like Radiohead?

A: It’s going to be great — it will be trimmed down and young bands will hopefully own their own songs, unlike us and most past and present bands, thanks to the Featured Artists’ Coalition.  It’s an exciting time, because bands and fans can communicate directly with one another for the first time and that’s got to be a good thing. 

Everything’s up for grabs.  Young bands, as long as they are good, will always do well.  There’s some amazing music out there and bands will have to get used to the fact that their money will be largely made through gigs, merchandise, etc, which will have to subsidise recording.  Twenty years ago bands made their money through records and not touring, now it’s flipped right over and the opposite is true. Nothing to fear.

This may be bang on the button – major publishing houses will have to change their model. People are marketing themselves through the web; running websites; participating in interactive forums; designing eLearning initiatives and publishing to online journals. They no longer need publishing houses to ‘publish’. Publishing houses used to argue that 90% of a publications royalties were required to pay for the publications service but with agencies such as LuLu.com – is this service still needed?

The founder of Medscape – Peter Frishauf has two predictions… 

• Within 5 years, most medical journals will be open-access. That means every journal will do what Medscape has done since day 1 in May 1995: provide access to trusted articles and data at no cost.
• Peer review as we know it will disappear. Rather than the secretive prepublication review process followed by most publishers today, including Medscape, most peer review will occur transparently, and after publication.

more about “The End of Peer Review and Traditiona…“, posted with vodpod