LIVE FREE WEB CAST to explore the process of committing to the consortium for Open Access in Particle Physics Publishing

SPARC and ACRL are hosting Dr. Salvatore Mele, Head of Open Access at CERN and spokesperson for SCOAP3, at a LIVE FREE WEB CAST to explore the process of committing to the consortium, establishing its governing board, the project's conditions for the call for tender, and to answer remaining questions.

You can join SCOAP3,(the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access in Particle Physics Publishing) in this webcast .

SCOAP wants to change how libraries operate where:

Today: (funding bodies through) libraries buy journal subscriptions to support the peer-review service and allow only their patrons to read articles BUT

Tomorrow: funding bodies and libraries could contribute to the consortium, which would pay centrally for the peer-review service and articles would be FREE to read for EVERYONE.

SCOAP3 currently depends on expressions of interest from the U.S.library community before the experiment can move ahead. The proposal is currently supported by more than 130 U.S. libraries, by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, and by libraries, consortia and funding agencies in 18 other countries.

SCOAP3 has a unique potential to transform scholarly communication.The initiative aims to convert the literature of an ENTIRE FIELD to Open Access by re-directing current expenditures in journal subscriptions. It has so far collected pledges for a total of 8.8 Million $/year from partners in 21 countries, corresponding to 63% of

its worldwide budget envelope.

In the U.S., a growing number of leading libraries and library consortia have already signed an Expression of Interest pledging to re-direct their current expenditures in High-Energy Physics journals to the SCOAP3 initiative. If successful, these pledges total 2.5 Million $/year. About 1 Million $/year are still needed to complete the expected U.S. contribution and enable the initiative to move forward.

Please join us for this special event to learn more about how your library can help change the model for scholarly publishing in High Energy Physics.

Register by June 9 at:

http://www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/event_registration.shtml=20

.

For more information, see:

The SPARC-ACRL FAQs at

http://www.arl.org/sparc/publications/papers/scoap3_09april.shtml

The SCOAP3 web page at http://scoap3.org and

The SCOAP3 expression of interest for U.S. libraries at

http://tinyurl.com/scoap3us=20

SPARC

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than 800 academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication. SPARCs advocacy, educational and publisher partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc/.

ACRL

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), represents more than 13,000 It is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments.