give me an i?1/2ei?1/2.

Byline: Kim Thomas

give me an 'e'

The annual Frankfurt book fair is where everyone in the world of publishing gets a chance to catch up on the newest developments. Since the last fair, Amazon has launched its Kindle e-book reader in the US, and Sony has started selling its e-book reader in the UK, so all eyes in Frankfurt will be on the 361 exhibitors including e-books in their displays.

In the academic sector, the pace of change has been faster than almost anywhere else. More than 90% of scholarly journals are now published electronically, a development that has revolutionised access.

According to Bob Campbell, senior publisher at Wiley-Blackwell, in the early 1990s a hard-copy journal would be bought by about 500 libraries. Now, as a result of changed pricing models, in which publishers offer bulk deals, or libraries join consortia to share the cost, the same journal (in electronic format) will go to about 7,000 libraries. He adds that the decision by many publishers to digitise back issues has resulted in large numbers of downloads and citations for articles that were previously gathering dust.

enrichment

But in this increasingly competitive environment, a wider readership is not enough. Michael Jubb, director of the Research Information Network, argues that publishers need to add value to their digital offerings by providing extra functionality, such as "alerting them to new materials that may be of interest to them, providing linking services to put together all the relevant material, and so providing platforms which give to the reader a single point of entry into a much enriched set of materials".