Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) is an international alliance of academic and research libraries developed by the Association of Research Libraries in 1998 which promotes open access to scholarship. They currently have over 800 institutions in North America, Europe, Japan, China and Australia. SPARC Europe was established with LIBER in 2001.

As of September 2013, the executive director was Heather Joseph.

The idea of SPARC was presented at the 1997 annual meeting of the Association of Research Libraries. Kenneth Frazier, librarian at the University of Wisconsin, proposed that attendees at the meeting develop a fund to create a new publication model for academic journals wherein many libraries contributed to that fund, and from that fund, the contributors would create new publications on some model which lowered the costs of all journals. As founding director, Rick Johnson led the establishment of SPARC in 2002 as a result of so many librarians expressing the desire for reform.

SPARC publishes an addendum which authors may use to negotiate with academic publishers. The form provides a templated request by authors to add to the copyright transfer agreement which the publisher sends to the author upon acceptance of their work for publication. Authors which use the form typically retain the rights to use their own work without restriction, receive attribution, and to self-archive. The form gives the publisher the right to obtain a non-exclusive right to distribute a work for profit and to receive attribution as the journal of first publication.

Founding organizations:

Later endorsements:

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