Internet Librarian International 2006 started off with London School of Economics Professor Danny Quah talking about the economics of publishing. OK, that wasn’t exactly what I asked him to address, he was supposed to talk more about the knowledge glut and the weightless economy, but it’s interesting to hear from an academician who writes the scholarly literature rather than the librarians who buy the scholarly literature. One of his points was that technology advances should reduce the cost of publishing, but these reductions are not passed on to consumers. When it comes to the knowledge glut, he asked if information is viewed purely as an economic commodity, what is the special nature of both knowledge and librarians? Where is the wealth creation? And how do we convince policy makers that the knowledge glut and the value of information professionals is an important issue? We have markets in disequilibrium, which affects the greater social good. There’s a paradox between individuals living within society and the operation of that society itself. If something goes sufficiently wrong, system does not automatically repair itself. This unhappy set of circumstances is why there’s knowledge glut, according to Quah. The supply of information has exploded and much is cheap and abundant, but traditional for-profit publishers continue to raise prices so that researchers in third world countries can’t afford it. Quah cites Kenya as one example.

There was a lot to think about in this talk. Quah isn’t a motivational speaker, he’s a professor of economics. But he cares deeply about defining the digital divide in economic terms that will frame the issues of the knowledge glut in terms that governments can understand.

ILI2006