Keywords
Citation
Fitzsimmons, E. (1999), "Trying to cut serial costs", The Bottom Line, Vol. 12 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.1999.17012aab.007
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited
Trying to cut serial costs
Trying to cut serial costs
Keywords: Competition, Publishers, Serials
The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) have recently endorsed SPARC. SPARC (Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition) is an ambitious effort on the part of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to create more competition in the field of scholarly journals. SPARC encourages scholarly publishers including university presses and scholarly societies to initiate the publication of alternative titles to the higher-priced journals on the market today. Membership of SPARC is $5,000 for both members and affiliates, and in addition to the dues, which support the organization's initiatives, members and affiliates must commit to purchasing a minimum of $7,000 worth of SPARC-related publications. Originally only ARL members were invited to join SPARC, but membership is now open to international academic and research institutions. In the six months since SPARC started to seek members from ARL institutions, it has grown to 105 members.