Latest news

Experts Meeting on the UNESCO Open Access Strategy

sparc — 2011-11-29T13:01:50Z

Open Access Forum 2011

Lars Bjørnshauge attended the Experts Meeting on the UNESCO Open Access strategy held last week (22-23 November) in Paris.

The objective of the session in which he presented 'The Status of OA Journals' was to focus on understanding the contemporary status of Open Access journals and how UNESCO can promote OA journals.

Visit the online programme (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/portals-and-platforms/goap/open-access-community/open-access-forum-2011/) to see all presentations available.

Sharing knowledge: EC-funded projects on scientific information in the digital age

sparc — 2011-11-20T22:09:20Z

Conclusions of a strategic workshop, Brussels, 14-15 February 2011 Rapporteur, Caroline Sutton

The report presents and analyses the discussions held at a workshop on scientific information in the digital age that took place in Brussels last February, where leaders from 18 EU-funded projects learned and shared their knowledge with the aim to identify key questions and issues that would serve as basis to formulating policy recommendations.

The main subjects dealt with in the report are scientific data, infrastructures, preservation, publications and awareness. Policy recommendations under each of these subjects are listed in the report.

Lars Bjørnshauge Appointed Interim Director SPARC Europe

sparc — 2011-10-24T12:55:28Z

Lars Bjørnshauge has been appointed to the role of Interim Director for SPARC Europe

SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition)
http://www.arl.org/sparc

SPARC Europe
http://www.sparceurope.org

For immediate release
October 24, 2011

For information, contact:
Jennifer McLennan
(202) 296-2296 ext 121
jennifer [at] arl [dot] org

Lars Bjørnshauge Appointed Interim Director, SPARC Europe

(Washington, DC and The Hague) Lars Bjørnshauge has been appointed to the role of Interim Director for SPARC Europe, Bas Savenije, Chair of the SPARC Europe Board, announced today. Bjørnshauge, formerly Director of Libraries at Lund University in Sweden and a long-standing member of the SPARC Europe Board, assumed overall management of the 93-member library organization, effective October 19, 2011.

“SPARC Europe is very fortunate to have someone of Bjørnshauge’s caliber step into this leadership role,” Savenije said. He added, “Lars has the unique experience and expertise required to help the organization navigate the challenges facing libraries in the fast-moving scholarly communications realm.”

Bjørnshauge has over twenty years’ experience in the library community. Prior to his decade-long service as Director of Lund Libraries, he held management positions at the Technical Knowledge Center & Library of Denmark (DTV) in Lyngby, as well as serving as head of department at the Royal Danish School of Librarianship in Copenhagen.

Well known for championing innovative programs, particularly in the Open Access arena, Lars founded the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and led the team behind it until recently.

“Bjørnshauge's experience in directing large, international projects will serve him well in his new role with SPARC Europe,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC in North America. “His creativity and ability to innovate will be true assets to the organization.”

Bjørnshauge succeeds Drs. Astrid Van Wesenbeeck, who is taking on a new role as project manager with the National Library of the Netherlands. One of Astrid’s activities will be working as the first-ever Open Access Officer at the Dutch National Library (KB) in The Hague.

According to Heather Joseph, the coalition is currently completing a strategic review of its international efforts. Further news on SPARC global programs is expected in the coming weeks.

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SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) is a library membership organization that promotes expanded sharing of scholarship. SPARC believes that faster and wider sharing of outputs of the research process increases the impact of research, fuels the advancement of knowledge, and increases the return on research investments. SPARC is supported by a membership of over 800 academic and research libraries worldwide. SPARC is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc

SPARC Europe is an alliance of European research libraries, library organizations and research institutions. We provide a voice for the community and the support and tools it needs in order to being about positive change to the system of scholarly communications. Our members represent over 100 of Europe’s leading academic and research institutions. Membership is open to national and academic libraries, library organizations and research institutions in the region. SPARC Europe is on the Web at http://www.sparceurope.org/

SPARC Europe Annual Meeting in Barcelona

sparc — 2011-08-31T16:46:47Z

Presentations are now available!

SPARC Europe held its annual meeting in Barcelona last June, during the first day of the 40th LIBER annual conference.

You can download the PowerPoint presentations below.

"Headlines SPARC Europe July 2010 –July 2011", Astrid van Wesenbeeck, Executive Director
"Open Access as a model to sustain academic book publishing" Eelco Ferwerda, Amsterdam University Press
"Update on the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) – with a look into the future" Lars Björnshauge, Lund University
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)? Astrid van Wesenbeeck, Eelco Ferwerda and Lars Björnshauge

We hope you find them of interest.

Sixth SPARC Europe Award

sparc — 2011-07-01T12:49:32Z

EIFL Open Access Program wins the sixth SPARC Europe Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications

Barcelona, June 30th, LIBER 40th Annual Conference

The 2011 SPARC Europe Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications goes to the EIFL Open Access Program for the awareness, advocacy and capacity building activities the organisation has carried out over the last three years and for its success in developing a large number of both repositories and open access journals run in the EIFL partner countries.

EIFL is an international not-for-profit organization enabling access to knowledge for education, learning, research and sustainable community development in more than 45 transition and developing countries including 17 countries in Europe as well as Africa and Asia. www.eifl.net

To date, EIFL-OA’s activities in Europe include:

The organization of 30 awareness raising, advocacy, and capacity building events from 2005-2011;
Support and mentoring of national and institutional OA advocacy campaigns targeted at research communities;
Funding for small grants to support open access publishing initiatives in Lithuania and Serbia; and
The coordination of the OpenAIRE Project, an EU funded project, in 10 European countries.

The results of this work can be seen in the development of 211 OA repositories and 2,344 OA journals in the EIFL partner countries in Europe and in the adoption of OA mandates by ten institutions in the EIFL partner countries in Europe, as well the implementation and consideration of national OA policies in Lithuania, Poland, and Slovenia.

Please visit http://www.eifl.net/openaccess for more information.

With the sixth Award SPARC Europe wishes to encourage the EIFL Open Access Program and its program manager Iryna Kuchma to continue the excellent work and to encourage other organizations to get inspired by EIFL's approach and activities. SPARC Europe believes the EIFL Open Access Program sets a perfect example for colleagues who aim to take up advocacy work and run activities to take the Open Access Movement further.

SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Europe initiated the Award in 2006 to recognize the work of an individual or group within Europe that has made significant advances in our understanding of the issues surrounding scholarly communications and/or in developing practical means to address problems within the current systems.

Previous winners are:

2006: Wellcome Trust http://www.wellcome.ac.uk
2007: SHERPA http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
2008: Mr Leo Waaijers
2009: Directory of Open Access Journals www.doaj.org
2010: CERN (particularly for their role in the SCOAP3 Project) www.cern.ch