The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) is pleased to announce
sponsorship by the California Digital Library (CDL) on behalf of the ten campuses of the University of California. This represents a full commitment by all of the libraries in the UC system, eight of whose campuses offer degrees in philosophy....Edward Zalta, Principal Editor for the SEP, notes “We are very grateful to receive significant support from the CDL and the University of California. With this pledge, the SEP tops the $1 million mark in commitments from libraries worldwide. This cooperative effort ensures that philosophical scholarship is widely available and accessible to all. The broad-based support from institutions (even some without degrees in philosophy) demonstrates that the SEP is valuable for students and faculty of diverse subjects such as mathematics, religion, law, medicine, and science.” Tom Sanville, spokesperson for the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC), notes that “With libraries
world wide working collaboratively we are creating and preserving open access to a vast body of philosophical
scholarship. This pioneering effort illuminates a unique and revolutionary approach to achieve open access. It’s a technique we hope the library and academic communities can utilize again.”
Comment. The SEP is an authoritative OA encyclopedia. For a couple of years now it's been pursuing an unusual but promising method to build an endowment so that it can cover its costs without having to abandon OA. I hope it succeeds: the SEP deserves to survive and endowments are a perfect fit with the needs of OA.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/03/2006 08:58:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
