Challenges of the Print to Electronic Transition: A Society Publisher's Perspective

The Geological Society of London has a long and prestigious publishing record. Founded in 1807 it has had a continuous print publication record since the first volume of the Transactions of the Geological Society of London was made available in 1811. Thirty four years later the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society was launched, but more than a century passed before a third title was added.

Today the Geological Society publishes around 10-12 000 pages of new peer-reviewed content annually, much of it within its well known Special Publications series. The 21st century challenge for the Society has been to bring this content together, building a comprehensive and highly functional electronic collection of content in order that users can extract maximum value from the Society's accumulated content. The result is the widely praised Lyell Collection, launched in 2007 – the Geological Society's bicentenary year.

Society publishers are often significant within their field, yet can rarely rely on the scale of resources, connections or economies of scale enjoyed by the large commercial publishers with which they compete. It is essential, therefore, that these not-for-profit organisations work efficiently and intelligently, applying their resources as effectively as possible and utilising external expertise as required. Most importantly, success for the society publisher in tomorrow's predominantly electronic world will be contingent upon establishing collaborative relationships and partnerships with suppliers, authors, readers – and librarians.