Outsourcing – measuring the status quo

This article summarizes the results of a short survey completed by 94 publishers, librarians and suppliers within the international scholarly publishing community in early 2017. From a selection of 13 categories included as a multi-choice pick-list, each with additional sub-categories – a total of 57 options – the participants identified the functions they are currently outsourcing and provided a forecast of those they are considering outsourcing in the future. The survey found the top sub-category function currently outsourced across all three stakeholder groups to be ‘Content hosting/technology platform’ (one of seven sub-categories associated under the parent category 6: ‘IT – Hosting/content’), which was selected by a total of 18 survey respondents. The survey provided new insights into the issue of outsourcing in the scholarly communications field, and the author invites further participation to build on these initial findings