What kind of publishers will we see by 2015?

Questions at the end of the morning's session were encouraged, in a novel twist, by Muir Gray's insistence that all delegates should turn to their neighbour and discuss the morning's findings. An interesting question that grew out of this: what kind of publishers will we see by 2015?

Huge consolidation in the industry, says James Grey. Publishers will start to serve very specific communities with content absolutely tailored to them, with better services than currently offered. Kevin Guthrie adds that the publishing environment will look more like eBay - a range of decentralised services, whether around credentialing or other, diverse aspects of the research process. Just as eBay requires seller ranking and ecommerce services, publication services will revolve around infrastructure platforms which will enable local enterprises to create niche markets (subcommunities) to grow alongside the major consolidated players.