What academic authors want and fear

This contribution is the write-up by the convenor (a publisher) of a panel session that also included two academic information scientists, a librarian, and the head of an organization representing authors. Our concerns were with what scholars want from their publishing vehicles in the digital environment and what worries them about how their publications may be used or not used. We were mainly interested in journal articles. Publishers tend to interact with academics, and librarians meet them primarily as users, but this schizophrenia can be overemphasized. We tried to set out what evidence there is from our own research and that of others.