Caught in the middle: Scholars, publishers, librarians and information revolutions today and tomorrow

All of us – scholars, publishers, librarians – are being pulled apart by the forces of two concurrent revolutions in information access and processing. Every day, we are reminded that Stewart Brand was right: “Information wants to be free, and information wants to be expensive”. Meanwhile, smart appliances and self-driving cars show the way to the Internet of Things in which information is not just for human consumption, while people crowdsource, crowdfund, and share everything from lolcats to regime change. These twin revolutions have already driven fundamental changes in publishing and in library services, and more changes will be coming. Meanwhile, the scholar’s limited time and attention are overwhelmed by the rapid changes taking place. By shifting their focus to the scholar’s personal information management needs, librarians and publishers can collaborate to deploy new solutions and improve the scholar’s information environment.