At the moment of Elsevier’s acquisition of Plum
(2 February 2017) Roger C. Schonfeld writes that today’s news that Elsevier has acquired Plum Analytics from EBSCO provides the latest opportunity for insight into the remarkable evolution of the largest and most sophisticated academic content providers. From Elsevier and Springer to EBSCO and ProQuest, these publishers and content providers are reducing their reliance on their content businesses as engines of growth. While these businesses remain strong, they are pursuing one of two newer directions for greater growth. Aggregators like EBSCO and ProQuest are investing substantially in content support businesses, while scientific publishers are investing substantially in research management and analytics businesses. How and why they are making these investments tells us something about how they see the environment developing and offer indications of how libraries may wish to engage them most effectively.
Read the article in full by Roger Schonfeld on the Ithaka S+R website.
