SCS20

May 10-11, 2020 | Greensboro, NC

CANCELLED: Symposium on Strategies for Transitioning Journals to Sustainability

Dear Colleagues & Friends,

We regret to announce that we have decided to cancel the upcoming Scholarly Communications Symposium to be held in Greensboro due to a lack of venue capacity here to support the overwhelming level of interest the symposium has generated, and also the travel bans that many state universities unfortunately still have in place for North Carolina which would prevent many from attending. We are exploring the possibility of SPARC hosting the presentations via webinars which would be open to everyone and not require travel; please check the SPARC site and listservs for details on these possibilities in coming weeks.

This was a difficult decision to make, but it became impractical to host the event here because of the scale it had reached. We regret the cancellation of this symposium, but we look forward to continuing the important OA conversation with you at other meetings and conferences.

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The theme of this year’s conference is “Strategies for Transitioning Journals to Sustainability”, and will focus on how libraries and other academic institutions are planning and implementing interventions, alternative publishing models, and other responses to the ongoing serials crisis.

The past year has been notable because of the boycott of Elsevier by the University of California system, as well as the unbundling of so-called big deal subscription packages at many major flagship universities. A key category of questions this symposium will engage with could be summarized as, “If not Elsevier, then what?” Alternatives to monopoly publishers include transitions to high-quality peer-reviewed open access (OA) journals, OA mandates by funding agencies, and governmental responses to monopolistic control of scholarly communication.

Major presenters who have already committed to speak at this year’s symposium include our keynote Heather Joseph (SPARC Executive Director), librarians from California and other states who have either boycotted or unbundled Elsevier subscription packages, faculty editors from around the world who have taken their journals independent of Elsevier, funding agency officials who have instituted OA mandates, and legal experts who will speak to government oversight of scholarly communication.

SPEAKERS