What Can Data Tell Us about Publishing?

Abstract

Reliable and accurate data form the basis for driving progress and taking informed decisions. The publishing organizations – national, regional, and international – play a crucial and unique role in this, especially the International Publishers Association (IPA), which has been quite effective through its World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) collaboration. International publishing data show the size of the market and the leading publishing nations, as well as more granular data of formats such as print versus digital. The scarcity of data from the Global South should improve over time. Moreover, we see that high-quality data can help shape policies in the publishing industry on sustainability in general and climate change in particular.