SPARC Recognizes Ted and Carl Bergstrom

[Jennifer McLennan <jennifer@arl.org>]

For Immediate Release
June 5, 2007

For more information, contact:
Jennifer McLennan
jennifer@arl.org
(202) 296-2296 ext 121

SPARC RECOGNIZES TED AND CARL BERGSTROM
AS SPARC INNOVATORS

Father-son team named for pivotal work on journal pricing
and assessing the value of scholarly information

Washington, DC - June 5, 2007 - SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing 
and Academic Resources Coalition) has recognized Ted Bergstrom 
and Carl Bergstrom as the new SPARC Innovators.  The father-son 
team advances the open sharing of scholarly information through 
original research and the creation of innovative tools that are 
used widely by the academic community to assess the value of 
research.

Ted and Carl are best known for their collaborations on Ted's 
journal pricing Web pages and, more recently, on the 
Eigenfactor.org Web site produced by Carl's research lab. Ted's 
journal pricing page, which offers data reporting price per 
article and price per citation for about 5,000 academic journals, 
has centralized pricing information so it can be explored and 
compared in ways that were previously impossible. The site has 
become a vital resource for researchers and librarians alike. 
Carl's Eigenfactor.org site offers a completely new and 
innovative approach to assessing the value of journals; it 
provides researchers, librarians and others a new mechanism to 
evaluate based on a diverse array of criteria.

Ted, an economist, holds the Aaron and Cherie Raznick Chair of 
Economics in the Economics Department at the University of 
California Santa Barbara. Carl, a theoretical and evolutionary 
biologist, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology 
at the University of Washington.  To read in more detail about 
the Bergstroms' contributions to scholarly publishing, please see 
the SPARC Innovator Web page at 
http://www.arl.org/sparc/innovator/.

"It's clear that father and son place a high value on the open 
sharing of information, and they have devoted their careers to 
probing the notion of defining value in scholarship," said SPARC 
Director Heather Joseph.  "Although they work in different 
fields, they come at the basic questions of fairness and access 
in ways that will impact scholarly communication for generations. 
It's entirely reasonable to believe that, together, they have the 
ability to change the way journals are measured and purchased."

"It is an honor to be recognized by SPARC, whose goals I share," 
Ted Bergstrom said. "And a great pleasure to share this honor 
with Carl, who has made our projects a lot of fun."

"I very much appreciate this honor, and I am particularly pleased 
to be sharing it with my father," said Carl Bergstrom. "I've 
deeply enjoyed working with him, and it means a great deal to me 
to know that others find our work to be useful and interesting."

The SPARC Innovator program recognizes advances in scholarly 
communication realized by an individual, institution, or group. 
Typically, these advances exemplify SPARC principles by 
challenging the status quo in scholarly communication for the 
benefit of researchers, libraries, universities, and the public. 
SPARC Innovators are featured on the SPARC Web site semi-annually 
and have included Melissa Hagemann of the Open Society Institute; 
the University of California; and Herbert Van de Sompel of the 
Los Alamos National Laboratory. SPARC Innovators are named by the 
SPARC staff in consultation with the SPARC Steering Committee.

Individuals can nominate their colleagues as potential SPARC 
Innovators at http://www.arl.org/sparc/innovator/nominate.html.

For further information or a list of previous SPARC Innovators, 
please see the SPARC Web site at http://www.arl.org/sparc.

###

SPARC
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with SPARC
Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than 800
academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of
scholarly communication. SPARC's advocacy, educational, and publisher
partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is
on the Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc.

Jennifer McLennan
Director of Communications
SPARC
(202) 296-2296 ext. 121
(202) 872-0884 Fax
http://www.arl.org/sparc