Excerpts from *SPARC e-news* August-September 2002
>From the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
http://www.arl.org/sparc,
http://www.sparceurope.org
Responses and subscription requests to: alison_at_arl.org
NB: Registration is still open for October's SPARC-sponsored workshops on
Institutional Repositories and E-Print Archives in Washington, DC and
Geneva. Please see <?page=h23> for
details.
_____________________________________________
Report on ALPSP Roundtable on Open Access
Upcoming conferences & workshops
__________________________________________
SPARC Scientific Communities
eScholarship (California Digital Library [CDL])
http://escholarship.cdlib.org
University of California International and Area Studies (UCIAS) has
launched the UCIAS Digital Collection
(
http://repositories.cdlib.org/uciaspubs/), a peer-reviewed electronic
publications program. UCIAS is a partnership of the University of
California Press, the eScholarship program at the California Digital
Library, and internationally oriented research units on eight University of
California campuses.
UCIAS (
http://repositories.cdlib.org/uciaspubs/about.html) publishes
peer-reviewed articles, monographs, and edited volumes generated by
research projects, workshops, seminars, and conferences at internationally
oriented institutes, centers, and programs involving the University of
California. All publications are peer reviewed according to standards set
by an interdisciplinary UCIAS editorial board. UC Press will publish and
sell hard-copy versions of selected UCIAS volumes. The digital publications
will be available free of charge and made persistently available through
the CDL.
2c. SPARC Leading Edge
BIOMED CENTRAL
http://www.BioMedCentral.com
The BIOMED CENTRAL (BMC) Institutional Membership Program has now attracted
more than 50 members, including Harvard, Princeton, the World Health
Organization and the University of California system. By becoming members
of BMC, these institutions have chosen to actively support open access, a
policy that is at the heart of its publishing activity. There are over 80
BMC open access journals (see
http://www.biomedcentral.com/libraries/oajournals.asp). All researchers at
member institutions whose research is accepted for publication in BIOMED
CENTRAL's peer reviewed open access journals are eligible for a processing
charge waiver. More information about the membership program can be seen at
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/instmembership.asp.
NEW JOURNAL OF PHYSICS
http://www.njp.org
NJP continues its recent growth with 67 papers published to date in 2002.
Over 165,000 papers have now been downloaded since the journal's launch.
5. ALPSP Roundtable on Open Access: Report by David Prosser, Director,
SPARC Europe (incoming)
On 13th September Raym Crow, SPARC Senior Consultant, presented a paper on
converting existing journals to open access to a group of UK publishers in
London. The round-table meeting, co-sponsored by the Association of
Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) and the Open Society
Institute (OSI), considered the future of journal publishing and,
specifically, the opportunities (and threats) that open access brings to
researchers, librarians, and publishers. Raym suggested that there is no
single financial model for open access journals (where online access to the
literature is free to all at the time of publication) and that different
disciplines may require different solutions.
Raym discussed a range of models (together with examples of where they had
been used). Amongst these were: author publication fees, institution
submission charges, sponsorship, offprint sales, differential versions
(where the basic version is free and subscribers pay for an enhanced
version), grants, institutional subsidies. Jan Velterop, from BioMed
Central, described how they use a combination of the first two of these
models to provide open access to papers published in their 57 biology and
medical titles.
Researchers' needs were put forward by Les Carr (Southampton University),
who outlined the requirement of his fellow scholars for the literature to
be integrated and accessible so that they can gain access to all the
relevant research they need and to ensure that others can access their
research. Martin Richardson (Oxford University Press) described
alternatives to open access for increasing dissemination of the literature
- e.g. consortia and whole-country licensing.
Overall, there was some consensus from the participants (who were mostly
from small to medium not-for-profit publishes) that open access would be
good for the research community. Many also articulated the challenge of
migrating from subscription-based to open access, especially in Europe
where authors have traditionally not had the funds to pay for publication.
Raym's presentation, together with those of the other round-table speakers,
is available at <
http://www.alpsp.org/s130902.htm>.
Upcoming conferences & workshops
SPARC has partnered with related organizations to coordinate two workshops
on building OAI-compliant repositories. The workshops will be held in
October 2002 in Geneva, Switzerland and Washington, DC:
* 2nd Workshop on the Open Archives Initiative (OAI): Gaining independence
with e-prints archives and OAI, October 17-19, 2002, CERN. For more
information: <
http://library.cern.ch/Announcement.htm>.
This conference will guide individuals and institutions interested in
pursuing open-access solutions for scholarly communication initiatives
through the process of conceiving, implementing and maintaining an e-print
archive or OAI-compliant repository. Both institutional and
discipline-based repositories will be covered; the conference will address
equally the technical and organizational aspects of creating and
maintaining such repositories. In addition to a general introduction to the
open-access concept, there will be presentations of case studies and an
extensive discussion section.
The audience for this conference includes: university administrators,
department heads and faculty; academic and scientific society officials and
publishing chairs; academic journal editors and editorial board members;
publishers; government bureaucrats responsible for innovation in
scholarship and publishing; librarians; technical services staff; and
others with an interest in open access for scholarly communication.
Attendees will leave the conference with solid technical knowledge for
creating and maintaining OAI-compliant repositories of scholarly documents.
There will also be a focus on the "political" side of implementation:
introducing the concept of a repository into an institution, and
negotiating with various groups within the community to assure its success.
Attendees will also be exposed to related initiatives aimed at reforming
scholarly communications, such as SPARC and the Budapest Open Access
Initiative.
* "Institutional Repositories: Creating an Infrastructure for
Faculty-Institution Partnerships," October 18, 2002, Washington, DC. For
more information:
<?page=h23>.
This workshop, sponsored by SPARC, ARL, and CNI, will help academic and
research library and IT directors plus their senior staffs begin planning
for the implementation of repositories designed to house faculty works,
such as articles, data sets, images, video, and courseware.
Speakers from institutions that are planning and implementing institutional
repositories will bring hands-on experience to the discussion. They will
focus on the cultural and management dimensions of establishing an
institutional repository, rather than on technical matters.
Expected outcomes for participants are an enhanced understanding of:
* what institutional repositories are and why institutions need them;
* how institutional repositories fit together with other resources
like journals and disciplinary repositories;
* what is involved in establishing and operating an institutional repository;
* what are the key policy issues that need to be resolved;
* how to engage faculty participation; and
* strategic and resource implications for the library and the institution.
SPARC encourages participating librarians to invite a faculty member from
their institution - for example, the chair of your library advisory
committee or your institution's scholarly communication
committee. Register for the workshop online at:
<
http://db.arl.org/ir2002>. The registration fee is $175 per
participant. Space is limited.
***
First Nordic conference on scholarly communication
Lund, October 22-23, 2002; Copenhagen, October 24, 2002.
For more information: <
http://www.lub.lu.se/ncsc2002>.
In order to discuss, present and analyze the problems and challenges that
are arising within scholarly communication, Lund University Libraries,
Denmark's Electronic Research Library, Danish Research Library Association
and Novo Nordisk Library and Information Centre invite scholars,
publishers, vendors, editors, librarians and others to the First Nordic
Conference on Scholarly Communication. The conference will take place every
second year and intends to be an important contribution to the development
of scholarly communication initiatives within the Nordic countries.
***
Research Innovation and Scholarship: A Conference on the Role of Open
Access Publishing
November 21-22, 2002, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
For more information: <
http://www.carl-abrc.ca>.
This conference will focus on the nature and scope of e-prints,
institutional repositories, the operation of the OAI and the practical and
organizational issues to address. The approach will be international with
particular reference to the Canadian situation.
***
(c) SPARC 2002
Please circulate freely.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Alison Buckholtz
Associate Enterprise Director
SPARC -- The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition
21 Dupont Circle, Ste. 800, Washington, DC 20036 USA
T: 202 296 2296 x115 * F: 202 872 0884 * E: alison_at_arl.org
http://www.arl.org/sparc http://www.sparceurope.org
http://www.arl.org/sparc/DI
http://www.createchange.org
Received on Fri Sep 27 2002 - 12:33:38 BST