LibraryTechtonics

Mashable reported yesterday that Rupert Murdoch, who is in the process of acquiring the Wall Street Journal, wants to make all of the content free much the way the New York Times released their full archive to the internet wilds.  However, with premium online subscriptions on the rise and paper subscriptions on the decline, no one is sure which way it’ll go.

With publishers weighing the ad revenue potential of eyeballs against premium subscriptions and licensing, can the database content that libraries subscribe to ever go the same way?  Would it compromise the integrity of the content to have contextual ads on the content pages?  I could see a huge benefit to libraries with a cut in costs for database subscriptions, with revenue from ads serving as a discount.   Could it actually ever happen, or is the content model just too different?

What do you think?

Tags: New York Times, subscription databases, Wall Street Journal