Some Fears
Authors distribute directly to readers, eliminating everybody else (LANL server in physics)
Publishers offer books and journals electronically, from their own archives, making libraries obsolete (E-Journals from Elsevier Science Direct, Springer Link)
Scientific libraries publish literature produced in their institutions, making publishers obsolete (HighWire Press)
One virtual book shop eliminates all other book shops (Amazon.com)
The Web and its search engines make databases superfluous (Alta Vista)