With the proliferation of industry groups working in parallel not partnership toward the same goal, there is often very little movement on publishing pain points. In this piece, longtime publishing executive Michael Cairns reflects on his experience, making a case for consolidating publishing’s trade and standards organizations.

By Michael Cairns

A Landscape Built for a Different Era

Over my career I’ve seen my participation and support of various associations and standards groups as both an obligation and opportunity for professional growth. I was on the original ONIX steering committee, financially supported the ‘rescue’ of BISG in the early 2000s and as an AAP board member voted to sue Google over book scanning. Over the years I have attended conferences – many poor, some good, served on committees and sat through board meetings. I’ve seen how many of these organizations compete quietly for the same executive’s attention, the same budget allocations and the same seats at policy tables. I do not posit that these organizations fail in their mission, rather that the system was never designed, it accumulated.

The American publishing industry generates roughly $32 billion in annual revenue. That is meaningful, but not enormous. Financial services and healthcare — industries of an entirely different scale — each sustain two or three dominant trade bodies capable of driving legislation, funding original research, and fielding full-time government affairs operations. By my estimate, publishing sustains more than thirty organizations with overlapping mandates, challenging financials, and competing calendars.

The organizational density, if mapped, is excessive relative to the industry’s scale. Standards bodies alone include NISO, ANSI, ISO TC46, W3C, CrossRef, and the DOI Foundation. Scholarly publishing is served by SSP, ALPSP, Chorus, AUPresses, AAP/PSP, EASE, and SPARC. Trade publishing has AAP, IPA, BISG, and IBPA. Manufacturing is covered by BMI and PRINTING United. Bookselling has ABA, NACS, and a constellation of regional affiliates including NAIBA. Libraries, an alphabetic carnival, represented by ALA, ARL, ACRL, IFLA, SLA, and MLA. This is by no means an exhaustive list but, each of these organizations has a board, a staff, a budget, a conference, and an annual appeal to the same finite pool of publishing professionals.

Yes, progress is achieved; however, the result is a structure that serves institutional preservation more than advancement.

What I’ve Seen in the Room

I have seen the same executives cycle through different boards simultaneously, doing justice to none of them. Governance requires attention and continuity. What it gets, in this environment, is calendar management. The people most qualified to lead these organizations are spread so thin that meaningful strategic direction and guidance become nearly impossible to sustain. And in an environment where resources are increasingly strained, leaders spend most of their productive time managing membership subscriptions and sponsorships. It is certain that large publishing players are reducing their financial commitments across the board making the financials for many associations even more constrained.

I have seen the same research questions asked by three different associations in three different surveys, published six months apart, with findings that neither aggregate nor build on each other. “Tell us about your use of AI….” Every organization wants to own its data. The industry ends up with noise instead of intelligence. Nobody is producing the longitudinal, cross-sector research that would move decision-making at the senior level. There is no meaningful benchmarking and monthly revenue reporting is of dubious quality.

I have attended many SSP, ALPSP, AUPresses, and AAP conferences scheduled within weeks of each other, drawing many of the same executives, each organization fighting for the same sponsorship dollars from the same publishers. I have watched companies make attendance decisions based on relationship obligation — who is the CEO this year, which board am I on, what’s the location — rather than on any honest assessment of strategic value. That is a sign of a broken system, not a flourishing one.

It is advocacy where fragmentation is most costly. When AI and copyright, open access mandates, library ebook licensing, or educational pricing reach Congress or the Copyright Office, the industry sends multiple voices with overlapping and occasionally contradictory positions. That is not influence. It is noise. Policymakers notice, and they act accordingly — by looking elsewhere (to technology companies) for authoritative guidance.

Talented and enthusiastic volunteer leaders can burn out and become disenchanted with the lack of sustained and significant progress. Sitting on multiple boards as a secondary obligation while running a publishing division full time is not sustainable. Governance quality suffers. Decisions get deferred. Strategic initiatives stall. The organizations then wonder why momentum is so difficult to build and maintain. This accumulated structure is the answer.

There Are Better Models

I am not proposing something unique: Adjacent media sectors have already undergone some consolidation. In 2022, the News Media Alliance and MPA — the Association of Magazine Media — merged into a single organization with a unified advocacy agenda and eliminated duplicated infrastructure. While mergers are hard, we have done it in publishing: NISO gathered up NFAIS and IBPA absorbed PubWest. The nonprofit sector more broadly is accelerating consolidation as a strategic response to resource constraints and growing member demand for results. (I’ve participated in board discussions about the amount of financial reserve the association needs to maintain, and it always strikes me that the amount of cash sitting in reserve accounts across the publishing association infrastructure is a decent number). The methods are established: full merger, consolidation into a new entity, parent-subsidiary structures with shared governance, and joint operating agreements that preserve distinct identities while eliminating back-office redundancy.

There is no case for a single monolithic publishing association. Publishing is definitely the sum of its parts and that would eliminate the genuine specialization that serves members. I am arguing for rationalization — fewer organizations, with clearer mandates, non-overlapping charters, and sufficient operational scale to fund real staff, real research, and a real legislative presence. The current infrastructure is ‘sub-optimal’ and cannot do any of those things at the level the industry actually needs.

Look out, Incoming…

The scholarly publishing cluster — SSP, ALPSP, and AUPresses — is the most natural starting point. All three serve the same professional community, produce overlapping research, and compete on the conference calendar. A federated model with shared operations and a unified annual summit would reduce overhead substantially while preserving each organization’s programmatic identity and mission focus. This is not a radical idea. It is basic corporate organizational logic applied to a sector that has long ignored it.

NISO and BISG (perhaps also BMI) represent a second clear consolidation opportunity. Both operate at the intersection of metadata standards, supply chain data, and digital transformation. A merger would produce a single authoritative body on industry standards — ending the current dynamic in which publishers participate in parallel working groups that occasionally produce conflicting outputs. Combining CHORUS and SPARC might also prove effective and beneficial to both although is modest in impact.

In the library world, librarians’ inclination to mediate and connect may have something to do with the excessively broad array of associations and groups. This organization looks increasingly anachronistic, and as revenue models change many of these associations will not survive. Rationalization must occur here and perhaps a well-funded organization like OCLC could create an ‘associations’ structure providing shared operating support and collaboration across interest and standards groups.

Suggestions for Board Discussion

Merge SSP, ALPSP, and AUPresses into a federated Scholarly Publishing Alliance
Create a unified annual conference, a shared advocacy office in Washington, and three distinct programmatic divisions that preserve each organization’s mission focus. This would eliminate the most visible redundancy, frees up significant sponsor budget currently split three ways, and produces an organization with enough critical mass to employ full-time policy staff. The scholarly publishing community deserves a body that will lead on open access, AI, and research integrity — not three separate organizations issuing separate statements on the same day. Consideration may also be given to combining with STM where technical capabilities might be extended more broadly to sustain and support needed infrastructure.

Merge NISO and BISG into a single standards and industry intelligence organization
The publishing industry needs one authoritative voice on metadata, supply chain, and AI readiness. Right now, it has multiple working groups and no clear center of gravity. A combined organization — properly resourced, with a mandate that covers both standards development and market intelligence — would be positioned to do the kind of foundational infrastructure work that benefits the entire industry, not just its members.

Convert regional bookselling associations into chapter affiliates of ABA
NAIBA and other regional associations serve real communities and present genuinely valuable local programming. That work does not require separate incorporated governance structures, separate boards, and separate overhead. A chapter model preserves the local identity and the community relationships while eliminating the duplicated administrative burden that strains every one of these organizations every fiscal year.

A coherent library ecosystem requires bold realignment
Enacting change in Libraryland may be more problematic but financial realities will accelerate change. Consolidating overlapping associations, integrating standards work, and positioning OCLC as a shared infrastructure hub. Streamlining structure will reduce duplication, strengthen advocacy, and create alignment around unified metadata, access, and digital‑transformation priorities essential for long‑term sustainability.

The publishing industry is at a genuinely consequential inflection point. Artificial intelligence, copyright law, distribution economics, and the future of the library relationship are all in motion simultaneously. The associations that represent this industry need to be equal to that moment. That means being resourced, focused, and unified enough to effectively lead — to put expert staff in front of Congressional committees, to publish research that shapes the conversation, and to speak with one voice on the important matters.. The current infrastructure, built incrementally over decades with no systemic design, is not capable of that. Consolidation is not a threat to publishing’s associational culture. At this point, it is the precondition for its relevance.

Michael Cairns is an executive leader in digital transformation and scholarly publishing. He has held senior roles across the publishing industry and writes on organizational strategy, digital modernization, and the future of content. To read more from Michael, visit his Substack. To contact him, email him at michael.cairns@infomediapartners.com