SPARC & ACRL release materials re. progress of OA journal publishing

[Jennifer McLennan <jennifer@arl.org>]

For Immediate Release
November 6, 2007

SPARC and ACRL release materials on the progress of open access 
journal publishing

WASHINGTON, DC & CHICAGO - NOVEMBER 6, 2007 - SPARC (The 
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and the 
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), have 
released interviews and analysis exploring in depth the views of 
three major open access publishers on the challenges of 
sustainability. The materials were produced in conjunction with 
the 15th SPARC-ACRL Forum on Emerging Issues in Scholarly 
Communication, which took place on June 23, 2007.

The Forum, which is held at every meeting of the American Library 
Association, offered participants the opportunity to engage in 
conversation with top executives from the three organizations. 
Speakers included Mark Patterson, director of publishing for the 
Public Library of Science; Bryan Vickery, deputy publisher for 
BioMed Central and Editorial Director for Chemistry Central; and 
Paul Peters, director of business development for Hindawi 
Publishing Corporation. Alma Swan of Key Perspectives Ltd., 
moderated the session. Podcasts and slides from the event are now 
available at <http://www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/ala07>.

The new materials offer a deeper level of insight into the three 
publishers' business models and include:

     * Interviews (in podcast and written formats) with each 
executive exploring each organization's approach in detail.

     * A matrix comparison of the publishers' views on 11 aspects 
of maintaining their operations, including: the financial 
viability of the company; the basis for charging publication 
fees; new and traditional impact factors; and the role of 
institutional memberships in the business model.

These tools for campus outreach were produced for SPARC and ACRL 
by Alma Swan of Key Perspectives Ltd. and may be downloaded 
through <http://www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/ala07>.

For more information, visit the SPARC Web site at 
<http://www.arl.org/sparc/forum> or the ACRL Web site at 
<http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/scholarlycomm/scholarlycommunication.cfm>.

Contacts:

Kara Malenfant
ACRL
kmalenfant@ala.org
(312) 280-2510

Jennifer McLennan
SPARC
jennifer@arl.org
(202) 296-2296 x121

##

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/>.

ACRL

ACRL is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), 
representing more than 13,500 academic and research librarians 
and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual 
membership organization in North America that develops programs, 
products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and 
research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education 
community to understand the role that academic libraries play in 
the teaching, learning and research environments.

####