This month’s Searcher Magazine has a made a featured article “Survival Lessons for Libraries Staying Afloat in Turbulent Waters—News/Media Libraries Hit Hard” by James Matarazzo and Toby Pearlstein available free online.
There has been quite a bit written about the fate of newspapers (and magazines) and the staffs that support them with respect to creating new publishing business models. Weaning the industry away from a model based on print advertising alone in order to arrive at a successful internet-based business model seems to be the overriding challenge.
As recently as January 2010, the Financial Times reported that Alan Rushbridger, the editor of The Guardian, “described the financial effects of the internet on his newspaper … [as] sometimes quite scary.” 1 In discussing the viability of pay walls such as the FT itself now uses and will be implemented by The New York Times in 2011, the author points out that even if only a small percent (6% is quoted from an Outsell, Inc. study) of U.S. readers will pay for online news sites, this number alone could mean profitability and could provide enough data about subscribers to enable more targeted and therefore more sellable online advertising. 2 The kicker, if you will, is that specialized business publications like the FT and the Wall Street Journal have a better chance of survival because their business focus draws corporate customers. For the general newspapers to be saved, they will have to “take the plunge” and find a new way of doing business.
Read the full article at Survival Lessons for Libraries: Staying Afloat in Turbulent Waters—News/Media Libraries Hit Hard.
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