HotTopics: Future Information Industry Scenarios: Information Highway To Hell Or Stairway To Heaven?

This unique HotTopics brings together Outsell's analysis of the multidimensional forces shaping the information industry today, and it outlines some scenarios that are likely to result. It reviews the tectonic shifts induced by three broad categories of forces: technological; social and market; and business, governmental, and academic. Seven specific scenarios likely to result from those forces, some of them seemingly contradictory, but none of them mutually exclusive, are identified and analyzed for their effects on players in the industry. The scenarios include phenomena such as direct-to-consumer publishing that bypasses the publishing industry; open access source models in scholarly and business publishing; next-generation "documents"; and users as their own aggregators. The HotTopics concludes with a list of essential actions for industry players.