Slide 7 of 22
Notes:
SPARC describes itself as “an alliance of universities, research libraries, and organisations built as a constructive response to market dysfunctions in the scholarly communication system.” Originally US-based but SPARC is now also active in Europe, and is endorsed by JISC.
- Promotional and raising awareness: Create Change and Gaining Independence.
There are two publications listed in the handout, one of which is a guide to creating a business plan for starting up an electronic publishing venture - free of charge on the Web.
- SPARC-endorsed journals (SPARC Alternatives)
JISC “warmly endorses SPARC’s efforts to achieve greater value for libraries by providing alternatives to conventional high priced journals.”
For example PhysChemComm published by the Royal Society of Chemistry as an alternative to Chemical Physics Letters.
forcing price reductions – for example Tetrahedron Letters – Cardiff’s price went down in 2001
academic quality (the SPARC journal Organic Letters (from ACS) has a higher impact factor (3.367) than Tetrahedron Letters (2.558) . Data is from year 2000.
defections of editorial boards in Oct 2001, 40 editorial board members of the Machine Learning Journal resigned and they now support the SPARC alternative Journal of Machine Learning Research
