Open Access Week, October 19 - 23, 2009

October 19-23, 2009 is the first international Open Access Week.

Open Access Week is intended to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research within the international higher education community and the general public.

Last years Open Access Day organizers SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition), the PLoS (The Public Library of Science), and Students for FreeCulture are joined for 2009 by OASIS (the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook); Open Access Directory (OAD); and eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries).

Activities around the world are listed at Open Access Week.
Check out the week of talks at the University of Puerto Rico, the pre-week activities in Ireland, the PLoS competition for the best medical paper and the spirit of open access haiku contest from SHERPA.

Income models for supporting open access

A new guide "Income Models for Supporting Open Access" has been published by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, or Sparc for publishers who want to support open access. From the guide:

Developing a sound business model is a critical concern of publishers considering open-access distribution. Selecting the model appropriate to a particular journal will depend not only on the expense hurdle that must be cleared, but also on the publisher’s mission objectives, size, business management resources, risk tolerance, tax status, and institutional or corporate affiliation.

This Web site and accompanying guide provide an overview of income models currently being used to support the open-access distribution of peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific journals. These resources will be a useful tool both for publishers exploring new potential sources of income and for libraries weighing where to direct meager library funds.