BottomLine$$$: Executives see value in PDFs
Digitized publications are saving money but preserving the business models of journals
As the cost of paper and ink continues to rise, the nation continues to emphasize “green” initiatives. People are increasingly turning to portable devices for their reading preferences, and many scientific and medical publishers are moving journals and publications to PDF format instead of spending the money to print them.
Part of the allure of PDF publications, aside from the cost benefit for the association, is the ease of access. PDFs can be saved and stored to desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones, and for the most part universally accessible across operating systems. With more than 83% of scientific, technical or medical publications and journals now available online (and growing!), libraries are able to continue to stock volumes of scholarly research without sacrificing publications because of budget. The speed of delivery is almost instantaneous, and there are more advanced metrics on just who is reading the publications.
Some are apprehensive about the decrease in price at which the journals can be sold, but this is handily accounted for by the significant decrease in printing costs. Journals can become living documents, updated constantly, linked from one to the next, and able to be condensed or expanded to suit individual readers’ needs.
Concerns around open access can be assuaged by validation practices that require logging in or entering an authentication code when trying to access articles from mobile devices. This allows even more metrics to be reported back to the publisher, but also allows for customization by users for a better overall experience.
PDFs allow the publisher to maintain control over the work, while allowing the reader to carry it along and search the document with ease. And, if downloads translate into purchases, the business model around journals is unharmed. As the industry and the nation continue to move into the digital age, print publications are increasingly becoming “print to file” publications.
