Why a partnership with the University of Michigan library?

Creating a journal published by an academic institution and involving the university library is a novel approach. One reason is to utilize the feasibility of existing expertise within libraries as a way to manage academic publishing.

The academic library remains a vital part of the scholarly enterprise and understands the desire of scholars for increased accessibility of knowledge.  The library is not driven by market demands; it does not exist to make a profit, but rather it exists to serve.

Specific strengths can also be brought to a journal through partnership with the library.  The library can provide expertise in formatting that would be otherwise costly to purchase.  It also is an expert ally in maintaining archival material.

SPARC

The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC ®) is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system.  Developed by the Association of Research Libraries, SPARC has become a catalyst for change.  Its pragmatic focus is to stimulate the emergence of new scholarly communication models that expand the dissemination of scholarly research and reduce financial pressures on libraries.  In collaboration with stakeholders, including authors, publishers, and libraries, actions by SPARC build on unprecedented opportunities created by the networked digital environment to advance the conduct of scholarship.

What Does SPARC Do?

SPARC’s role in stimulating change focuses on:

1. Educating stakeholders about problems facing scholarly communication and the opportunities for change
2. Advocating policy changes that advance the potential of technology to advance scholarly communication and that explicitly recognize that dissemination is an essential, inseparable component of the research process
3. Incubating real-world demonstrations of business and publishing models that advance changes benefiting scholarship and academe.

SPARC can also assist in international publicity, journal announcement, indexing in search engines, and legal advice.

University of Michigan Library’s Scholarly Publishing Office

In January 2001, the University of Michigan Library established the Scholarly Publishing Office (SPO) to support authorial and editorial control of the finest scholarship production, and to minimize publication costs by offering users and authors editorial and referee tools, improved publication schedules, and the ability to incorporate various multimedia elements.  SPO also develops mechanisms for publication and distribution of scholarly digital projects (e.g., scholarly databases or websites with significant scholarly content) that move past traditional publication forms into new ways of scholarly expression.

SPO’s core publishing principles include:

1. Retention of all intellectual property rights by its authors or editors. SPO generally operates with non-exclusive licenses to distribute content
2. Long-term preservation of the electronic publication; the publication becomes part of the University Library’s collection and is therefore part of its preservation scope
3. A preference for publishing open access journals and those with scholar and library friendly policies and pricing