Wiki’s rise sends Sage to Google

Sage and Google join forces to combat Wikipedia effect

Academic publisher Sage is looking to strike up a relationship with search engine giant Google in its efforts to fight off the increasing influence of Wikipedia.

Sage vice-president Rolf Janke admitted to IWR that publishers would never be able to “completely adapt to users’ behaviour. There are cases where we will adapt and be more flexible as a defence mechanism to stay in business.”

Janke outlined how the company was looking to work with Google to provide 100-word abstracts of the entries within its own reference service, Sage eReference. Like wiki sites, eReference has a search engine at its heart, but, like a book, also offers an index for finding entries.

Janke said the company was assessing business models.

Janke accepted that Wikipedia thoroughly deserved its place in the information community. “Its collaboration and community is very good,” he said, but added that he was concerned about the way that articles were produced.

According to Janke, Sage’s reference model is still strong. “We are still a profitable business, and e-reference will survive like the e-journals market,” he said.

Sage eReference will set organisations back £5,000 for all 50 titles in its portfolio.

Janke added: “The global library market is substantial and is still rising.” But he accepted that publishers were not working together to adapt to new behaviour and would not do so.

Janke was speaking at the London Book Fair where Sage revealed eReference for the European market. The service supports the Counter usage and MARC records standards.