SPARC

Independent Foundation Facilitates Access to Journal Literature
in Developing and Transitional Countries

For Immediate Release
July 5, 2006

For more information, contact:
Jennifer Heffelfinger
jennifer@arl.org
(202) 247-6185

Washington, DC – SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has partnered with eIFL.net, an independent foundation that leads, negotiates, supports, and advocates for the wide availability of electronic resources for library users in transitional and developing countries.

eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries) assists libraries and their users in achieving affordable access to electronic scholarly resources. It focuses on the creation and strengthening of library consortia in member countries to ensure access to and the effective use of electronic tools. Efforts include advising members on consortium-related issues, negotiating and licensing affordable subscriptions, and building knowledge and competence in open access resources – including ways to capture local content in institutional repositories. eIFL also advises its members on appropriate technology solutions with a focus on open source software.

eIFL.net includes over 2,200 libraries in 50 countries, with a total population of about 800 million. A complete listing of eIFL.net’s membership can be found at http://www.eifl.net/countries/countries.html.

“eIFL.net deserves recognition for the great strides it has made in facilitating scholarly communication and equitable access to research results in developing countries,” said SPARC Executive Director Heather Joseph. “The strong foundation that eIFL.net has created in a short time is an impressive accomplishment and demonstrates a clear demand for its services. SPARC’s goal is to provide initiative and strong support to fuel further advances. Together, SPARC and eIFL.net will advance our common objectives, including a commitment to strengthening the global information marketplace through the development, maintenance, and support of cost-effective publishing programs.”

“As access to Internet-based digital material can be expanded at a marginal cost to the provider, eIFL.net aims to negotiate multi-country consortial deals with information providers in a way that leverages the purchasing power of individually ‘poor’ customers and secures highly discounted subscription prices for each country,” said Rima Kupryte, eIFL.net Director. “With this model, we can help lessen the digital divide between East and West and ensure equitable access within the individual countries. Our partnership with SPARC will allow us to connect with a larger academic community and reinforce our negotiating position as well as expand the benefits for our members.”

eIFL.net was founded 1999 as an initiative of the Open Society Institute (OSI), a private grant-making and operating foundation which is part of the Soros Foundation network. eIFL became an independent foundation in 2002 and now receives partial support from OSI.

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SPARC
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and SPARC Europe are an international alliance of more than 300 academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system. SPARC’s advocacy, educational, and publisher partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc/.

eIFL.net
eIFL.net is an international foundation that supports national library consortia in fifty transitional and developing countries. eIFL’s role is to negotiate and advocate for the wide availability of electronic resources for the education, research, and professional communities as well as governmental organizations and civil society. This global network embraces millions of users in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.