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June 2005 No.53

Other News

	Chinese library wins the Guust van Wesemael Literacy Prize
	Knovel program assists transition to a virtual library
	Indian patents now covered in Derwent World Patents Index
	SPARC and U. Michigan Scholarly Publishing Office launch publisher assistance program
	Ruth A Pagell appointed Chief Librarian for Singapore Management University
	Xinhua Finance launches China Insight corporate database
	Wiley InterScience launches extensive program to digitize journal content
	Chinese language magazines from NetLibrary
	Swets and CSIRO Publishing join forces in China
	Taxpayers commend precedent set by NIH public access policy
	Scirus indexes patent data of 13 million patents
	Download statistics compared to citation counts
	Internet filtering in China in 2004-2005
	Comparing institutional membership to per-article payment in an open access model

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SPARC and U. Michigan Scholarly Publishing Office launch publisher assistance program

Partnership provides business planning and digital publishing services for open-access journals

SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and the University of Michigan Library's Scholarly Publishing Office (SPO) have teamed up to launch the Publisher Assistance Program, which provides business planning and digital publishing services to facilitate open-access publishing in the social sciences and humanities. The Publisher Assistance Program, which integrates the complementary expertise of SPARC and SPO, provides a comprehensive solution for scholarly communities in search of a cost-effective way to reach potential readers.

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. SPARC and SPO bring together a business planning process to ensure the sustainability of the journal under an open-access or cost-recovery mode, including the transition from print publishing funded by subscriptions 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.

Social science publishers asking for this service

"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."

"Michigan believes that the synergy between SPARC's strong advocacy role and SPO's hands-on experience in open access publishing is extraordinarily powerful," said James Hilton, Interim University Librarian at the University of Michigan.

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 such publishers business planning services or technical assistance for dozens of print, online, and open-access journals. By joining forces, they have enhanced their ability to apply their experience in helping this scale of publishers overcome obstacles. For information on how to participate in the Publisher Assistance Program, please contact Raym Crow, SPARC Business Development Consultant, here .

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