SPARC fall digital repositories meeting

[Jennifer McLennan <jennifer@arl.org>]

For immediate release
June 24, 2008

For more information, contact:
Jennifer McLennan
(202) 296-2296 ext 121
jennifer@arl.org


THOUGHT-LEADERS IN POLICY, INNOVATION, AND ADVOCACY HEADLINE SPARC FALL
DIGITAL REPOSITORIES MEETING

Washington, DC
June 24, 2008

Higher-education leader David Shulenburger, Science Commons head 
John Wilbanks, and marketing communications strategist Bob Witeck 
are keynote speakers slated for the SPARC Digital Repositories 
Meeting 2008 in Baltimore on November 17-18. The international 
gathering, organized by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and 
Academic Resources Coalition) in cooperation with SPARC Europe, 
and SPARC Japan (a Japan National Informatics Institute 
initiative), will offer a practical exploration of how open 
online archives hosted by universities, colleges, and government 
agencies can enhance their service to scholars, institutions, and 
the public.

In the opening keynote address, John Wilbanks, Vice President for 
Science at Creative Commons and director of the Science Commons 
program, will provide his unique and inspiring vision for the 
potential of a fully enabled research Web. The following day, Bob 
Witeck, CEO and co-founder of Witeck-Combs Communications, a 
renowned marketing communications and public relations agency in 
Washington, DC, will tackle how repository advocates can 
introduce their services to campus and agency communities. David 
Shulenburger, Vice President for Academic Affairs at the National 
Association of State University and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) 
will wrap up the meeting with a public policy perspective on the 
emerging role of open digital repositories.

Joining the keynoters are speakers and panelists from around the 
world, who will look at four conference program areas - The 
Policy Environment, New Horizons, Value-added User Services, and 
Campus Publishing Strategies. Invited speakers include: Sayeed 
Choudhury (Johns Hopkins University, USA), Rea Devakos 
(University of Toronto T-Space, Canada), Norbert Lossau 
(Goettingen State and University Library and DRIVER, Germany), 
Bernard Rentier (University of Liege, Belgium), and Syun Tutiya 
(Chiba University, Japan). Additional speakers are to be selected 
by an expert program committee from submitted proposals.

The SPARC Digital Repositories Meeting 2008 is supported by major 
contributions from Microsoft (Conference Sponsor) and Berkeley 
Electronic Press (Coffee Break Sponsor), and by additional 
contributions from a number of Supporting Organizations, 
including: the Association of College and Research Libraries 
(ACRL), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Canadian 
Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), the DSpace Foundation, Fedora, 
Hewlett-Packard (HP), the Japanese Coordinating Committee for 
University Libraries, JISC (the UK's Joint Information Systems 
Committee), and the National Information Standards Organization 
(NISO).

The program is being developed by the members of the 2008 Program 
Committee: Jun Adachi (SPARC Japan), Raym Crow (SPARC), Richard 
Fyffe (Grinnell College), Susan Gibbons (University of 
Rochester), Melissa Hagemann (Open Society Institute), Karla Hahn 
(Association of Research Libraries), Bill Hubbard (SHERPA), Rick 
Johnson (SPARC), Michelle Kimpton (DSpace Foundation), Norbert 
Lossau (Goettingen State and University Library and DRIVER), 
Joyce Ogburn (University of Utah), Terry Owen (University of 
Maryland, College Park), Kathleen Shearer (Canadian Association 
of Research Libraries), Alma Swan (Key Perspectives Ltd.), Sean 
Thomas (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Susan Veldsman 
(eIFL), and Charles Watkinson (The American School of Classical 
Studies at Athens).

This meeting is a follow up to SPARC's popular 2004 institutional 
repositories conference, which drew hundreds of participants from 
around the globe and set the stage for some of the key 
developments in open access of the past four years.

To register for the SPARC Digital Repositories Meeting 2008, 
visit the conference Web site at http://www.arl.org/sparc/ir08. 
Early Bird Registration ends September 15.

For more details, including biographies for the keynote speakers 
and sponsorship opportunities, visit the conference Web site at 
http://www.arl.org/sparc/ir08.

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