**The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy anticipates reaching its intermediate goal of collecting $1.5 million in membership dues needed to secure the $500,000 in matching funds offered by the NEH.**
The SEP now has pledges of $1,650,000 in membership dues to SEPIA
from the library community (2/3 of this has been collected). If we
assume that we can collect enough to earn the full $500,000 in
matching funds from the NEH, this means that the library community
has raised $2,150,000 towards its goal of $3,000,000, leaving only
$850,000 left to raise! (Stanford University has raised its share of
$1,125,000, towards the SEP's overall goal of $4,125,000.)
We would like to draw attention to the following statistics. There
are 118 institutions in the U.S. and Canada that offer a Ph.D. in
Philosophy. 53 of those have pledged the full recommended amount of
$15,000 in membership dues to SEPIA. 21 have pledged a smaller
amount. This means 74 of the 118 Ph.D. institutions have made a
pledge, leaving 44 non-contributing institutions. If all 44 pledged
$15,000, we would have $660,000 -- which is over 75% of the remaining
goal. If, in addition, the partially contributing institutions were
to raise their existing pledges to the full amount, we would have an
additional $232,750, bringing us to $892,750. So we would like to
encourage noncontributing and partially contributing institutions
offering the Ph.D. in Philosophy to reevaluate the SEP.
We are happy to note that 48 of the 53 fully contributing
institutions are members of SPARC. Also, 19 of the partially
contributing institutions and 28 of the noncontributing institutions
are SPARC members. SPARC encourages libraries to use SPARC
commitment dollars to support this innovative venture.
How to Help
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy International Association
(SEPIA) is the membership organization that exclusively supports the
SEP. Indiana University Libraries sponsors SEPIA, and Southeastern
Library Network, Inc. (SOLINET) acts as its fiscal agent. SEPIA
membership dues support free and open access to the SEP.
SEPIA continues to collect membership dues from other libraries and
library consortia worldwide. Learn more about SEPIA at http://
www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=3563. To register your
commitment with SOLINET, go to http://www.solinet.net/survey/sep.htm.
For a list of libraries already committed to the project, see http://
plato.stanford.edu/fundraising/commitments.html.