SPARC and the University of Michigan Scholarly Publishing Office (SPO) have launched a program to provide business planning and digital publishing services for open-access journals in the social sciences and humanities. From today's press release: 'The Publisher Assistance Program offers existing and prospective publishers a variety of benefits based on SPARC's and SPO's in-depth experience in the field. Integrating this experience into the Publisher Assistance Program, SPARC and SPO together provide a business planning process to ensure the sustainability of the journal under an open-access or cost-recovery model, including the transition from a print, subscription-based model to an online open-access model. The Publisher Assistance Program will also offer a package of options for journal development, production, hosting, and maintenance. These packages will include free online hosting for open-access journals and a variety of digital publishing options that SPO will offer on a cost-recovery basis. "Many editors and publishers of journals in the social sciences and humanities are looking for a way to do well while doing good," said SPARC Executive Director Rick Johnson. "They frequently approach both SPO and SPARC seeking guidance on how to move their publications to an online environment, and they require both business planning advice and digital publishing technical expertise in order to achieve their goals. The Publisher Assistance Program can serve these needs and send them into the marketplace with sound business options and a superior open-access journal offering."...The new Publisher Assistance Program will serve nonprofit publishers of either new or existing peer-reviewed journals that wish to operate under an open-access model. SPARC and SPO have separately provided business planning services or technical assistance to dozens of print, online, and open-access journals. For information on how to participate in the Publisher Assistance Program, please contact Raym Crow, SPARC Business Development Consultant, at raym@arl.org.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/18/2005 03:05:00 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.
