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Disruptive technologies: what future universities and their libraries?

Susan Lafferty (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia)
Jenny Edwards (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)

Library Management

ISSN: 0143-5124

Article publication date: 1 August 2004

3308

Abstract

Christensen's Theory of Disruptive Technologies predicts that mainstream organisations and industries can be made obsolete by new technologies that change the whole paradigm of the industries in which they operate. This paper demonstrates the relevance of the theory of disruptive technologies to academic libraries, higher education and the academic publishing industry. The way universities are organised and how they operate could change radically; scholarly communication could be transformed, placing academic publishers at risk; academic libraries may become irrelevant as new business models emerge. There are strategies that these organisations might adopt to limit the effect of such technologies and/or preferably transform them into sustaining technologies.

Keywords

Citation

Lafferty, S. and Edwards, J. (2004), "Disruptive technologies: what future universities and their libraries?", Library Management, Vol. 25 No. 6/7, pp. 252-258. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435120410699636

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2004, Company

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