September 24, 2003
Getting Your Journal Indexed
To be recognized as an authoritative, high-quality source of information, a journal must be widely available. Indexing and abstracting services facilitate the broadest dissemination of information by pointing researchers to articles that are relevant to the field.

July 1, 2003
Model Business Plan: A Supplemental Guide for Open Access Journal Developers & Publishers, First Edition
SPARC Consulting Group for the Open Society Institute. [Also in PDF]

July 1, 2003
Guide to Business Planning for Launching a New Open Access Journal, Second Edition
SPARC Consulting Group for the Open Society Institute. [Also in PDF]

November 8, 2002
SPARC Institutional Repository Checklist & Resource Guide
A practical guide and overview of the major issues institutions and consortia need to address in implementing an institutional repository.

August 24, 2002
The Case for Institutional Repositories: A SPARC Position Paper

Raym Crow, SPARC Senior Consultant

Institutional repositories—digital collections that capture and preserve the intellectual output of university communities—respond to two strategic issues facing academic institutions: 1) they provide a central component in reforming scholarly communication by stimulating innovation in a disaggregated publishing structure; and 2) they serve as tangible indicators of an institution’s quality, thus increasing its visibility, prestige, and public value. This paper examines institutional repositories from these complementary perspectives, describing their potential role and exploring their impact on major stakeholders in the scholarly communication process.
See also: SPARC Institutional Repository Checklist & Resource Guide

April 24, 2002
Gaining Independence: A Manual for Planning the Launch of a Nonprofit Electronic Publishing Venture

Howard Goldstein, SPARC Consulting Group

An online manual to help nonprofit and independent organizations plan the launch of a scholarly communications project.

January 24, 2002
Capitalizing on Competition: The Economic Underpinnings of SPARC

Mary M. Case, Fmr Director, Office of Scholarly Communication, Association of Research Libraries

Over the last 15 years the library community has been faced with high and ever rising prices for scholarly resources. A number of factors have contributed to this situation, most fundamentally, the commercialization of scholarly publishing. While libraries have tried a number of strategies to ameliorate the effects of high prices, the development of SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, finally seems to be having some positive effects. This paper will review the current library environment, outline the elements that contribute to the marketplace for science, technology, and medical publishing, and then briefly discuss the various calls for more competition in the scholarly publishing market. I will then discuss SPARC, a major initiative intended to introduce low-priced, high-value alternatives to compete with high-priced commercial publications for authors and subscribers.

January 24, 2001
Media Map: Charting a Media Relations Strategy
This guide will help your organization: navigate its new role as policy influencer; communicate effectively with the media; deliver an effective message; sell a particular story; act as a valued media source. And if something goes wrong, this guide will pilot you through the most important points of crisis communications.

January 1, 2001
Declaring Independence
A guide copublished with the Triangle Research Library Network that talks directly to editors of scholarly journals and urges them, as central actors, to take control of scholarly communication and improve its dissemination.

November 2, 2000
Competition: A Unifying Ideology for Change in Scholarly Communication
It’s a hot topic at academic conferences, library association meetings, and scientific forums. During the past decade, the debate about how to transform scholarly publishing has animated discussions around the globe. The problem is clear: Scholarly journals cost too much. But though a variety of solutions has been proffered, none has yet been so widely embraced that the underlying structures have shifted appreciably…