The future of reference and e-book publishing remains strong, according to Rolf Janke, Vice President and Publisher of SAGE Reference. According to the publisher, the prospect of reference and e-book publishing remains strong despite continued concerns from the publishing industry over the growing popularity of social networking and online peer-reference sources such as Wikipedia.
Janke will be speaking at the forthcoming London Book Fair from April 14 - 16, 2008. Speaking at the Building E-Book Collections 2008 session on April 14, he will stress the importance of putting aside a 'one size fits all' approach to packages, and varying how content is made available to suit individual market needs. In addition, he will review the question of supply vs. demand: while thousands of academic e-books are loaded annually, only a very small percentage of these are actually accessed. It is up to the publishers and their ability to make their content discoverable and intuitive to make it appealing to the student market.
Sage has reportedly expanded its reference programme rapidly in what is perceived to be an already crowded marketplace. Sage eReference, which was launched in 2007, will include more than 80 encyclopedias by the end of the year. It has reportedly received positive reviews in its first year of launch. The platform was this year awarded a CHOICE Award for 2007 Outstanding Academic Title. The collection has been adopted widely internationally, including across the UK through an agreement with JISC Collections.
