Monday 7th April - Morning Sessions

After registration on Monday morning and a quick look around the exhibition area the conference opened with three plenary sessions.
James Gray of Ingram Digital Group discussed the digital supply chain, many publishers were now moving to a print on demand service to avoid the need for large warehouses. The Ingram Group owns Lightening Source, a print on demand company which prints 1.5million books per month, yet the average print run is less than two copies. Future developments include the plan to store all formats of a book together digitally, so there could be a PDF version, an audio version and a print on demand version, and able to be delivered to different devices.
Muir Gray discussed the deficiency of the peer review process in the field of medical research. He has found that medical trials which produce a greater effect are more likely to be published, than those producing negative effects, whether this is due to influence by publishers, sponsors of research or authors themselves is unknown but medical practitioners need to have balanced systematic reviews which the Equator project http://www.equator-network.org/ aims to achieve.
Kevin Guthrie from Ithaka compared the serials publishing industry to the newspaper industry - that initially both used new media to their advantage. Now they were in danger of being left behind by the internet and there is a need to evolve in order to survive, although the scholarly publishing industry has the advantage that authors use the system in order for promotion and the peer review process.
He suggested that we should think local - local newspapers can provide coverage of local events and adverts for local businesses, what can a local library uniquely provide?
Kathryn