ICOLC (the International Consortium of Library Consortia) is looking for US academic libraries and library consortia interested in joining CERN's SCOAP3 project. From yesterday's announcement:
...SCOAP3, the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics, is an effort to convert to open access a core set of journals in high energy physics (HEP). The initiative is based at CERN but is intended to be a worldwide effort. SCOAP3 will operate as a funding consortium, aggregating financial contributions from individual libraries, library consortia, and other organizations to convert HEP content in 7 existing journals that publish most of the HEP research to open access by funding peer review and publication in those journals....
SCOAP3's current efforts are aimed at collecting formal expressions of interest from libraries and consortia around the world, in order to determine if there is a sufficient level of potential support for the initiative to succeed.
These expressions of interest are not binding....
To date a significant number of European countries and consortia have signed formal letters of intent to contribute if sufficient critical mass can be achieved. At least 30% of the required level of support has been tentatively offered so far, demonstrating a high level of interest from around the world. CERN will continue to work directly with libraries and consortia outside the U.S. to solicit their support. However, SCOAP3 cannot succeed without a comparable level of support within the U.S.
ICOLC has agreed to serve as a collection point for expressions of interest from U.S. consortia....
U.S. Consortia willing to support SCOAP3 are asked to issue a formal expression of interest at...[this web form].
The form asks you to indicate whether you are willing to join SCOAP3 and to indicate the amount of funding you are tentatively willing to allocate to the initiative (so you will need to do your homework). The expression of interest assumes that existing subscription and/or license fees for the affected journals will be re-directed to SCOAP3, without requiring any increase in overall expenditures....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/22/2008 02:52:00 PM.
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.
