He was wearing his STM publishers tie, presented to him at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Speech for the motion Derek began by asserting that commercial publishers are making huge profits from scholarly publication. They are not aiming to help scholarly communication, but to make a profit and gain a controlling position in the world of data. He feels that scholarly communication is being driven by science and the emphasis is being placed on electronic communications networks. There has been a fundamental shift from purchasing data to leasing data and the publisher is playing a role similar to that of a time-share salesman.
Publishers have a new approach to information and see inter library loan as 'inter library theft' .
Everyone in a library has access to ALL the information available in that library and this allows for a vast breadth of interest with no limitation of classes of people to whom the information is available. Publishers wish to impose limits. Libraries organise data by subject whereas information available electronically on the Internet is organised by publisher. Movement from one publisher's web site to another is not a seamless operation and so movement is restricted. We will still need agents to act as intermediaries.