Library Intelligencer

author: John Houghton

A knowledge economy has been defined as one in which the generation and exploitation of
knowledge has come to play the predominant part in the creation of wealth. It is not simply
about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge; it is also about the more effective use and
exploitation of all types of knowledge in all manner of economic activities (DTI 1998).
Scholarly publishing plays a key role as it is central to the efficiency of research and to the
dissemination of research findings and diffusion of scientific and technical knowledge. But
advances in information and communication technologies are disrupting traditional publishing
models, radically changing our capacity to reproduce, distribute, control and publish
information. One key question is whether there are new opportunities and new models for
scholarly publishing that might better serve researchers and more effectively communicate and
disseminate research findings (OECD 2005, p14).
Building on previous work, this study looks at the costs and potential benefits of alternative
models for scientific and scholarly publishing. The work began in Australia in 2006 with a study
of Research Communication Costs, Emerging Opportunities and Benefits (Houghton et al.
2006). This was followed by a major study of the Economic Implications of Alternative
Scholarly Publishing Models for the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) in the UK
(Houghton et al. and Oppenheim et al. 2009). The aim of this study is to apply the same basic
approach to exploring the costs and potential benefits of alternative models for scholarly
publishing in Denmark.