SPARC

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SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), launched in 1998 as an initiative of the Association of Research Libraries, is an alliance of over 200 academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system. These imbalances have driven the cost of scholarly journals (especially in science, technology, and medicine) to insupportably high levels, and diminished the community’s ability to access, share and use information.  At the core of SPARC’s mission is the belief that these imbalances inhibit the advancement of scholarship and are at odds with fundamental needs of scholars and the academic enterprise.

MISSION

SPARC is a catalyst for action. Its pragmatic agenda stimulates the emergence of new scholarly communication models that expand dissemination of scholarly research and reduce financial pressures on libraries. Action by SPARC in collaboration with other stakeholders builds on the unprecedented opportunities created by the networked digital environment to advance the conduct of scholarship.

STRATEGY

SPARC strategy seeks to reduce barriers to access, sharing, and use of scholarship and, in particular, scientific research. SPARC’s highest priority has been on advancing the understanding and implementation of open access to research results. It is important to recognize that primary journal literature represents just one element of scholarly research and that SPARC’s strategy is designed to advance a more open system of scholarship as a whole.

Two key conditions are necessary for fundamental change to occur in scholarly communication: 1) scholars and scientists must actively recognize the benefits of change and 2) mechanisms to support the cost of scholarly communication must be implemented. SPARC’s strategy seeks to address both of these requirements; linking broad advocacy of change with real-world demonstrations of how new models of scholarly communication might actually work.

As a practical matter, SPARC’s program activity recognizes that change will play out differently in various disciplines and that, in some areas, the interests of academe may be best served in the near term by affordable subscription-supported publishing solutions. Our programs therefore aim at building a broader understanding of opportunities for change in all fields.

SPARC’s role in stimulating change focuses on:

• Educating stakeholders about the problems facing scholarly communication and the opportunities for change;
• Advocating policy changes that advance the potential of technology to advance scholarly communication and that explicitly recognize that dissemination is an essential, inseparable component of the research process;
• Incubating real-world demonstrations of business and publishing models that advance changes benefiting scholarship and academe.

2006 PRIORITIES

SPARC actions will, foremost, advance the viability and acceptance of a more open system of scholarship, with a primary focus on open access models. Over the past two years, the pace and scope of public policy developments – particularly interest in public access to federally funded research – has accelerated dramatically. It is important that SPARC deploy a very focused and disciplined advocacy strategy while remaining sufficiently agile to capitalize on emerging market opportunities that align with our objectives.  Reviewed below are the key program activities planned for 2006:

Public policy strategy – Following the highly visible success of SPARC’s public policy initiative to advance public access to NIH-funded research, our advocacy program will build on the NIH precedent and further raise the public policy profile of open access:

• SPARC will attend and, where appropriate, participate in national advisory committee meetings where public access policies are discussed, including the PubMed Central National Advisory Committee, the Public Access Working Group of the National Library of Medicine, the PubChem Working Group, and other relevant groups.
• SPARC will lead and manage the policy advocacy work of the Open Access Working Group (OAWG),* an informal alliance of leading organizations that support open access. Similarly, SPARC will continue to serve as the organizational focal point for the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA), a letterhead alliance that brings together the OAWG communities with patient advocacy organizations. In 2006, we will re-examine the operating model for the ATA, and consider alternative scenarios for long-term configuration and support of this entity.
• In 2006, we expect OAWG/ATA activity will focus on: 1) ensuring the NIH policy implementation results in a satisfactory outcome, and 2) supporting adoption of positive government-wide policies on public access to published results of publicly funded research.
• OAWG/ATA work is supported by a public policy consulting firm retained and supervised by SPARC, and will be closely managed to ensure that activities undertaken by this firm track SPARC’s focused objectives.
• SPARC is positioned as an expert source on the issue of public access, and will continue to actively and frequently communicate with reporters as they gather sources for articles. We will also work to feature more individual scholars as well as patient advocates through our work with the OAWG/ATA.
• An active series of presentations on SPARC’s advocacy activities will continue with presentations at meetings of both library and publishing organizations in the U.S. and abroad. SPARC will promote the relevance and importance of the rapidly growing international Open Access movement and share information on advocacy strategy and program planning with related library and scholarly groups worldwide, both on its own and in concert with SPARC Europe.
• To raise the profile of libraries as a key stakeholder in policy decisions that affect the communication of research results, SPARC will apply for observer status to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Decision on observer status is made by WIPO in the 4th quarter of each year.
• We will demonstrate open access’s progress by continuing our direct sponsorship of the monthly SPARC Open Access Newsletter, written by Peter Suber, and associated e-mail list, as well as the bimonthly SPARC e-news. The support of SPARC and the Open Society Institute also will continue to make possible Suber’s Open Access News blog, which has become a widely consulted news source for those tracking open access and scholarly communications generally.

Economics of Open Access – SPARC will partner with SPARC Europe to develop a high-level cost/benefit economic analysis of open access, with an emphasis on the potential benefits of open access to national economies. In March 2006, SPARC will host a “scoping meeting” for this project, to be attended by economists who will potentially participate in this analysis. The meeting will be supported with funds from OSI, and securing funding for the larger project will be actively pursued. 

Antitrust issues in journal publishing – SPARC will continue to actively participate in the Information Access Alliance, a group of library organizations working to highlight the budgetary impact of the rapid escalation of the price of information, particularly of journals in science, technology, and medicine. SPARC will support and promote activities of the IAA designed to seek new solutions to the problems associated with publisher bundling practices, and help to support the work of economists and antitrust scholars interested in looking at an area where unrestrained concentration is rapidly developing.

Model Form Author’s Addendum – In concert with partners (Science Commons and, potentially, the SURF Foundation), SPARC will launch a promotional brochure and publicity activities to support a model contract addendum that journal article authors can append to publishers’ copyright agreements to assert key rights, including deposit in institutional repositories. In partnership with Science Commons, SPARC will create a machine-readable form of this addendum, designed to enhance its searchability and usefulness.

The SPARC addendum employs the approach of reserving a “bundle” of rights at once for an author. To supplement this, SPARC expects to consult with Science Commons as they create and deploy a series of addenda designed to allow authors to reserve individual (“unbundled”) rights to ensure legal interoperability of these addenda. SPARC will collect and actively communicate data on the use of these addenda, as well as responses to the addenda by authors and publishers.

International activity – Because change in scholarly communications is needed on a system-wide, global scale, SPARC will seek to amplify its impact by working in collaboration with global allies such as SPARC Europe, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, and various national and regional university library associations.

• In partnership with the Japan Association of National and University Libraries, we expect to announce the launch of “SPARC Japan” in the second quarter of 2006. A full range of promotional activities will be deployed in support of this launch. SPARC will have representation on the governing board of SPARC Japan, and our expectation is that a close cooperative relationship and full slate of collaborative activities will develop among SPARC, SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan.

• As open access activities grow in scope and importance in developing countries, SPARC will collaborate appropriate partners, including eIFL.net.

Institutional repositories – SPARC will continue to maintain and expand the content-rich SPARC resource on institutional repositories (www.arl.org/sparc/repos/index.html).

• In 2006, SPARC will co-sponsor with SPARC Europe a second workshop on institutional repositories. As a follow up to the successful meeting held in Washington, D.C. in 2004, this workshop will be held this Fall in Glasgow, Scotland.  SPARC will contribute resources towards the planning and implementation of this meeting, tentatively titled “Open Scholarship and Institutional Repositories.”

• As the discussion surrounding institutional repositories evolves from issues surrounding their establishment and launch to issues central to identifying and adding content, SPARC will work to advance the understanding of the role that data plays in scholarly communications. In 2006, SPARC will commission a white paper on “Open Data” to explore the implications of practices and policies surrounding access to data.

Publisher partnership programs – SPARC will support, demonstrate, and promote useful examples of open access or selected other innovative publishing initiatives via the SPARC Alternative, Leading Edge, and Scientific Communities publishing partnership programs.

• To ensure close collaboration continues and to foster regular, candid dialogue between the library and not-for-profit publishing communities, SPARC will convene a quarterly series of round-table discussion meetings to be held in Washington D.C.
• SPARC will identify, support, and promote a robust, community-based venture designed to illustrate an end-to-end open system of data-driven scholarship.
• With ICOLC, we will support efforts by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to build an endowment sufficient to sustain perpetual open access publication.
• Via promotional and other activity (including service on advisory boards), SPARC will continue to aid both BioOne (www.bioone.org) and Cornell University’s Project Euclid (projecteuclid.org) in evolving sound, sustainable business practices needed to become leading platforms for digital dissemination of independent journals.

Campus education – SPARC encourages and aids libraries’ grassroots advocacy efforts, co-sponsoring the Create Change program and Web site (www.createchange.org) and collaborating with ACRL and other organizations to engage beyond the SPARC membership. In 2006, this campaign (Web site and printed material) will be completely updated to reflect a more faculty-focused approach.

Other SPARC activities will support institutionally based scholarly communication programs directed at faculty and administrators in higher education:

• Development and presentation of Webcasts and in-person roundtables on topics such as copyright issues for journal articles authors and the future of society publishing.
• Continued support of one-quarter of Julia Blixrud’s time to serve as a consultant to and speaker at local scholarly communication programs.

Discussion paper on Publishing Cooperatives– A key cultural barrier to changes in the current journal-publishing model is resistance from many societies and their active members. Their centrality to scientific and scholarly publishing makes understanding the future of society publishing a component of meaningful change to the journal publishing system. SPARC will develop a paper evaluating alternative models available to society publishers, specifically the potential application of the economic model of cooperatives to the publishing arena. This paper will explore benefits those models offer publishing societies, their members, and other academic community stakeholders.  It will form the basis for stimulating a broader community discussion of the future of societies that SPARC will play out in its campus, media and other communication initiatives. It will also serve as the basis for the creation of beta projects that can test the viability of such cooperatives.

Business consulting services – We will continue to make available SPARC-subsidized expert advisory services to deserving journals and alternative publishing ventures in 2006. In 2005, nearly twenty publishing organizations used this service, and we expect to work with a similar number of groups in 2006.

Publishing tools – SPARC will explore the addition of tools to its growing arsenal of practical aids to innovative journal publishing practice, including an in-depth guide to developing sponsorships in support of journal publications and a series of self-help resources on sound business planning practices for small independent publishing initiatives.

SPARC ORGANIZATIONAL MODEL

SPARC is supported by a membership of more than 200 libraries, mainly in North America and reaching beyond the ranks of ARL member libraries. In addition, several major library organizations around the world are SPARC affiliate members. The allied SPARC Europe organization comprises more than 100 additional members and is entirely self-supporting.

SPARC operates under the administrative umbrella and not-for-profit status of ARL. SPARC funds are administered on SPARC’s behalf by ARL and are accounted for separately from ARL funds. SPARC pays ARL a negotiated annual fee for administrative services and office space provided by ARL. SPARC receives no ARL financial support.

The SPARC Executive Director, who reports to the ARL Executive Director, manages the affairs of the coalition with guidance from a twelve-member SPARC Steering Committee that is broadly representative of all SPARC member institutions.

FINANCIAL STRATEGY

Income –SPARC operations are supported mainly by membership dues, which have not increased since SPARC was founded in 1998. Modest additional income is secured from interest on cash-on-hand. SPARC expects that its overall membership base and income will remain stable in 2006.

Expenses –It is expected that 2006 SPARC annual revenue and expenses will be approximately in balance (i.e., no material deficit or surplus).

* Current OAWG participants include American Association of Law Libraries, Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries, Association of College and Research Libraries, American Library Association, Association of Research Libraries, Creative Commons, Medical Library Association, Open Society Institute, Public Knowledge, Public Library of Science, and SPARC.