The incipient Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association is one step closer to launch. From today's announcement:
This spring Gunter Eysenbach and I [David Solomon] proposed forming a professional organization for open access publishers. At about the same time a number of the major professional open access publishers had also begun working towards this goal. We have been working together to develop a set of bylaws and a plan for the organization over the summer. I wanted to update you on our progress in forming what we are calling the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)....
I am pleased to say that we have made a great deal of progress and intend to announce the launch of OASPA on SPARC Open Access Day, October 14, 2008. We hope to have the web site in operation and begin the process of accepting applications for membership at that point.
We are tentatively planning of organizing a membership meeting next spring where a permanent board of directors can be elected and a set of bylaws formally adopted by the membership.
The draft bylaws are currently being revised but should be available with the launch of the organization. Voting memberships will be open to organizations that publish open access journals including professional publishers, individual or groups of scholar/researchers who publish OA journals without full-time professionals, academic/research libraries, university presses and other organizations that publish OA journals. Membership will be contingent on adhering to a code of conduct that we intend to ensure a high level of integrity in the operation of OA journals published by the member organizations.
Voting membership and representation on the board of directors will also be available to organizations such as SPARC that are not publishers but provide key support and services to open access publishing.
I also want to thank the group of colleagues who have worked on developing the plan for OASPA:
Lars Björnshauge (SPARC Europe)
Matthew Cockerill (BMC)
Gunther Eysenbach (Journal of Medical Internet Research)
Ahmed Hindawi (Hindawi)
Kevin Haggerty (Canadian Journal of Sociology)
Mark Patterson (PLOS)
Paul Peters (Hindawi)
Martin Rasmussen (Copernicus)
Bas Savenije (SPARC Europe)
I particularly like to thank Caroline Sutton from Co-Action Publishing who worked closely with me to keep the process moving and David Prosser of SPARC Europe who not only provided valuable input in the discussion but through SPARC Europe has provided support that is making it possible to launch OASPA.
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.
