Academic publisher SAGE has announced the results of the survey undertaken to gain insight and understanding of the professional challenges facing scholarly societies across the world in the 21st century. Launched in September, the survey, Meeting the challenges: societies and scholarly communication, was supported by the Association for Learned Professional and Scholarly Publishers; the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers; the International Association for Science, Technical and Medical Publishers; and the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences.
According to the survey, a growing, more international and diverse membership is expected by many scholarly societies in the next five years. Of 118 responses collected, 47 percent of societies placed international presence, including growth of a more international membership, sales penetration, and access to a society journal, as the most important issue facing their organisation. Increased online availability of journals is a service many societies aim to provide for members in the next five years. Also seen as important were online access to submission and tracking tools and citation data. Changing journals sales models (44%) and Open Access (42%) are both major challenges for societies, it was noted.
In addition, it was also observed that while 51 percent of societies in the survey experienced growth over the last five years, 13 percent of societies experienced decline. Many respondents expect continued growth, as a result of more international memberships, increased accessibility through online publishing, and increasingly-diverse memberships including more students and non-practitioners.
The report is available to download from www.sagepub.co.uk/socAssn/Survey2008.
