NEW POLICY FOR PUBLIC ACCESS TO OUTPUTS OF CANADIAN RESEARCH

WASHINGTON, DC and OTTAWA, NOVEMBER 28, 2006 - SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and CARL (the Canadian Association of Research Libraries)--together representing over 200 academic and research libraries across North America--commend the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for the strength and timeliness of its Draft Policy on Access to Research Outputs.

The CIHR's Draft Policy on Access to Research Outputs is the result of consultations, and a survey of the health research community, focusing on topics related to access. The process was conducted through the CIHR Web site beginning in April 2006.

CARL is the leadership organization for the Canadian research library community. CARL's members represent Canada's 27 major academic research libraries , Library and Archives Canada, the Library of Parliament and the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI).

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and SPARC Europe are an international alliance of more than 300 academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system. SPARC's advocacy, educational, and publisher partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research.