Join the movement to open access to research. Join SPARC!
Thanks to the power of collaborative action, the worldwide movement to improve the way scholarly research is shared, to lower price barriers and to open access to research has made impressive strides in a very short time.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) became the first U.S. federal agency to implement a policy requiring researchers to make the results of research funded by taxpayer dollars freely accessible in an online public repository.
Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences became the first U.S. faculty body to vote in favor of a campus open-access policy, ensuring broad access to research publications from their institution. A growing number of institutions (notably Stanford, MIT, Boston University, and the University of Kansas) have followed suit.
A group of five institutions (Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT and UC Berkeley) announced a joint compact, committing to expand the communication of research results by providing funds to support publication in open-access journals.
This year, October 19th to 23rd is Open Access Week – the first-ever international week-long celebration of free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research. The week is being marked by more than 200 research and academic sites worldwide, to broaden awareness of Open Access, mark the progress we’ve made, and inspire the worldwide higher education community to find new ways to continue the momentum. ·
I write to invite you to join the movement for opening access to scholarly research as a member of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), which relies on member support to realize our programs. Our member libraries range from small academic institutions to large research universities, and represent a broad cross-section of the library community – that with a deep interest in supporting and expanding access to scholarship.
SPARC’s mission is to leverage digital technology to expand the dissemination of scholarly research and, in so doing, reduce financial pressures on libraries. To achieve this mission, SPARC provides its members with timely programs, strategies, and tools that: empower libraries to work effectively with faculty members and campus administrators; communicate key issues and develop collaborative action plans; foster meaningful change in the way that scholarly research is shared.
SPARC has created successful, proven programs that provide the opportunity for member libraries to actively engage on the local, national and international levels and ensure that they have a leading role in determining how the system of scholarly communication continues to evolve in the digital age. Some notable example of these programs include:
Ensuring public access to the results of publicly funded research - SPARC advocates for the development and implementation of public access policies (like that of NIH) in the U.S. and internationally. SPARC places a premium on collaborative action and, accordingly, works in close concert with a broad range of stakeholder groups through its leadership of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (www.taxpayeraccess.org).
Equipping libraries to work with faculty and administrators around scholarly communication issues - SPARC regularly develops new tools to enable libraries in their role as core collaborators on campus. Recent efforts have centered around federal public access policy implementation, institutional open-access policy development, and open-access fund deployment. SPARC also presents a large suite of popular resources to its members, including:
Create Change, a Web resource for faculty, highlighting the importance of wider research dissemination across disciplines.
Author Rights, the campaign to help authors retain key rights to their works through an Author Addendum to publication agreement, which is updated regularly, translated into several languages, and available to complete and print online.
Timely guides on issues such as complying with the NIH Public Access Policy and creating institutional open-access policies.
The SPARC Innovator Series; the twice-yearly SPARC-ACRL forum; and numerous video and Web broadcast programs.
Expanding student involvement - SPARC has welcomed students to the conversation on access to scholarly research, and they have rapidly become an active (and growing!) presence, bringing fresh energy to library programs and adding a valuable voice to conversations with faculty. Students have been engaged through a variety of campaigns using both traditional and new media, including:
The “Right to Research: The student guide to opening access to research” campaign.
The annual Sparky Awards video contest, organized by SPARC and co-sponsored by ACRL, ARL, Penn Libraries, Students for Free Culture, Student PIRGS, Campus MovieFest and the New Media Consortium.
The “Voices of Open Access” video series, co-produced with the Public Library of Science, to showcase the views of librarians, students, scientists, and others on Open Access.
SPARC’s multi-dimensional, collaborative, and status quo-challenging work is made possible only with the support of our members. Our collective voice becomes stronger with every library that joins. And, with your support, SPARC will remain a vibrant, positive force for change. Please consider joining today.
If you have any questions, or to indicate your interest in joining or learning more, please let us know through http://www.arl.org/sparc/member/join/index.shtml. You may also contact Jennifer McLennan (SPARC’s director of communications) through jennifer [at] arl [dot] org. Thank you!
