Over the past few months, the team at Information Power has been hard at work with our latest project. On behalf of cOAlition S and ALPSP, we have created four Task & Finish Groups and are planning two public events in order to help facilitate Open Access Agreements between Libraries/Consortia and small, independent publishers that can be used universally.
During September and October, we advertised our working groups and over 100 people signed up! This was an excellent result and was really heartening to see so many people that wanted to volunteer their valuable time and expertise to help an important project that could really benefit many people all over the world.
The first Task & Finish Group started in late September and is centred around devising a set of shared principles to underpin Open Access arrangements involving small publishers. The group has met three times so far and each meeting has been immensely successful, with lots of spirited debate and a new draft set of principles.
The group has been especially concerned about the ideas of equity and inclusion and we think it is really important that the work we do can be applied to as many organisations as possible, regardless of what country they are based in or how wealthy they are. Additionally, the group is discussing ways to ensure equity for authors, libraries, and publishers.
As October continues, we’re excited to see what the Shared Principles group will continue to develop, and are excited to see our other three Task and Finish groups in action from November!
If you are interested in further information about the project, please feel free to email me at project@informationpower.co.uk.
Thom Barnes-Wise
