THE FUTURE OF REFERENCE PUBLISHING

Introduction

• Reference content can be defined firstly as any material to which individuals can refer to find authoritative facts. Traditionally, reference content was contained in books that could be referred to in the library but not taken out, an idea that captures the established role of reference as material that is not read cover to cover but dipped into to find relevant facts.

• Worldwide, the education reference market was worth $2.6bn worldwide in 2004, according to EPS estimates, a figure that represents 8% of the global education and training market.

• According to EPS estimates, reference material will represent $3.1bn of a $46.1bn market for learning content and services by 2009.

Customers for reference content

• Sales to institutional customers - schools, universities, corporate and public libraries - account for the bulk of reference publishing sales. However, there is also a significant market in selling reference material to individual customers.

• Customers expectations? are changing. Web search engines such as Google and Yahoo! have had a significant impact on the way customers expect to be able to retrieve reference content. They are on most users? desktops and are often the first point of call for quickly finding a snippet of information.

• As the number and profile of free online resources (such as Wikipedia and Answers.com) has increased, users have become increasingly willing to consult these easy and accessible destinations rather than turn to traditional branded reference works.

• The increasing usage of electronic resources has meant librarians have had to reassess how they interact with both users and content providers. Yet despite this, the traditional principles and aims of librarianship remain the same - to encourage usage of library resources and assist users of those resources. Librarians continue to be a vital intermediary sitting between the publisher and the user.

• A number of libraries have started offering virtual reference services to users where they can ask librarians for help in finding the information they need.

Business models and pricing trends

• Both aggregators and publishers tend to provide their reference material on a subscription basis, but the mix of business models can include subscriptions, pay-per-view, advertising and licensing.

• Business models for institutions vary from those offered to individuals, but across the board we are seeing a move to offer increasingly flexible pricing options.

• Subscription-based models for institutions can cover:

  • Concurrent access: institution pays for a certain number of users to be able to access the resource at any given time;

  • Usage-based: links the amount of use of a reference resource to the amount charged for access to it;

  • Flat-rate: charges a single fixed fee for the service, regardless of usage;

  • Tiered: the creation of different pricing bands or levels based on factors such as the size or research reputation of the institution;

  • Bundling: the online aggregation of e-content offered by a publisher or aggregator for sale or lease at a lower price per title than if each were purchased individually;

  • Sales and maintenance: a relatively new model, which involves a large initial payment followed by subsequent smaller payments for ongoing access;

  • Deals for consortia: increasingly, reference publishers are dealing with consortia of libraries that have grouped together in order to negotiate a lower price on a product than would be possible if they bought it individually;

  • One off fee for perpetual access.

• Business models in use for targeting individuals include:
  • Subscription;

  • Pay-per-view;

  • Advertising supported.

• Subscriptions are likely to dominate as the key business model for institutional customers.

• There is growing flexibility in terms of th