<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">For immediate release<br>April 7, 2008<br><br>For more information:<br>Jennifer McLennan<br>(202) 296-2296<br><a href="mailto:jennifer@arl.org">jennifer@arl.org</a> <br><br>SPARC ANNOUNCES NOVEMBER DIGITAL REPOSITORIES MEETING<br>Organizers put out call for presentation proposals<br><br>Washington, DC April 7, 2008 SPARC, in partnership with SPARC Europe and<br>SPARC Japan/National Institute of Informatics, announces the SPARC Digital<br>Repositories Meeting 2008, to be held November 17-18, 2008 at the<br>Renaissance Harborplace Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland.<br><br>Coming on the heels of two groundbreaking developments‹a recent vote by<br>Harvard¹s Faculty of Arts and Sciences enabling the university to offer<br>access to their articles in an institutional repository and implementation<br>of a new National Institutes of Health public access policy‹the meeting will<br>enable stakeholders to explore next steps for the burgeoning open archiving<br>movement.<br><br>Librarians, researchers, funders, administrators, government officials,<br>publishers, and technologists from around the world will share their<br>experiences and best practices in building and supporting institutional and<br>disciplinary digital repositories. The focus will be on effective engagement<br>with scholars and scientists to expand the sharing of research outputs via<br>open repositories.<br><br>The program, developed by a diverse and expert program committee, will delve<br>into four key areas: The Policy Environment, New Horizons, Campus Publishing<br>Strategies, and Value-Added Services. These tracks will be supplemented with<br>an Innovation Fair, where new technologies, strategies, and approaches will<br>be highlighted, and a Practicum on marketing and advocacy.<br><br>The program committee invites proposals for presentations at the November<br>meeting. Visit the conference Web site at <a href="http://www.arl.org/sparc/ir08/">http://www.arl.org/sparc/ir08/</a> for<br>details on the program and how to submit a proposal. The deadline for<br>submissions is May 30, 2008.<br><br>Members of the 2008 Program Committee include: Jun Adachi (SPARC Japan),<br>Raym Crow (SPARC), Richard Fyffe (Grinnell College), Susan Gibbons<br>(University of Rochester), Melissa Hagemann (Open Society Institute), Karla<br>Hahn (Association of Research Libraries), Bill Hubbard (SHERPA), Rick<br>Johnson (SPARC), Michelle Kimpton (DSpace Foundation), Norbert Lossau<br>(Goettingen State and University Library and DRIVER), Joyce Ogburn<br>(University of Utah), Terry Owen (University of Maryland, College Park),<br>Kathleen Shearer (Canadian Association of Research Libraries), Alma Swan<br>(Key Perspectives Ltd.), Sean Thomas (Massachusetts Institute of<br>Technology), Susan Veldsman (eIFL), and Charles Watkinson (The American<br>School of Classical Studies at Athens).<br><br>This is the first North American SPARC digital repositories conference since<br>the organization¹s popular 2004 meeting, which drew hundreds of participants<br>from around the globe and set the stage for some of the key developments of<br>the past four years.<br><br>Registration will open in May. For more information, visit the conference<br>Web site at <a href="http://www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/ir08/">http://www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/ir08/</a>. Companies or<br>organizations interested in conference sponsorship opportunities should<br>contact Jennifer McLennan at <a href="mailto:jennifer@arl.org">jennifer@arl.org</a>.<br><br>##<br><br>SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with SPARC<br>Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than 800<br>academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of<br>scholarly communication. SPARC's advocacy, educational and publisher<br>partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is<br>on the Web at <a href="http://www.arl.org/sparc">http://www.arl.org/sparc</a>.<br><br></body></html>