Reminder: SPARC-ACRL FORUM TO EXPLORE OPEN DATA

[Jennifer Heffelfinger <jennifer@arl.org>]

**This event will be available via podcast on the SPARC Web site in
July 2006**

SPARC-ACRL FORUM TO EXPLORE OPEN DATA

The upcoming SPARC-ACRL forum on emerging issues in scholarly 
communication, to be held during the American Library 
Association's annual meeting in New Orleans, will explore 
questions related to the field of Open Data.  The forum will 
feature experts who are familiar with the issues associated with 
Open Data and known for their analysis of the evolving scholarly 
communication scene.

During the past several years, Open Data has become a field of 
urgent interest to researchers, scholars, and librarians.  With 
the amount of scientific data doubling every year, issues 
surrounding the access, use, and curation of data sets are 
increasing in importance. The data-rich, researcher-driven 
environment that is evolving poses new challenges and provides 
new opportunities in the sharing, review, and publication of 
research results.  Ensuring open access to the data behind the 
literature will play a key role in seeing that the scholarly 
communication system evolves in a way that supports the needs of 
scholars and the academic enterprise as a whole.

As Open Data moves to the forefront of scholarly communication, 
librarians, administrators, and researchers will be responsible 
for considering new access policies for data and data curation 
issues.  This SPARC-ACRL forum will introduce Open Data as an 
emerging focus, explore the challenges of managing the data 
deluge, and aid participants in crafting their own digital data 
preservation and curation policies.

Speakers will include:

Christopher Greer, Cyberinfrastructure Advisor, Office of the 
Assistant Director for Biological Sciences, National Science 
Foundation

Robert Hanisch, Project Manager, US National Virtual Observatory, 
Space Telescope Science Institute

Clifford Lynch, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked 
Information

The SPARC-ACRL forum will be held on Saturday, June 24th from 
4:00 - 5:30PM in the Morial Convention Center, Room 356-357. 
Reservations are not required.

The forum is followed by the ACRL Scholarly Communication 
Discussion Group, an opportunity to exchange views with speakers 
from the forum and take the discussion to a deeper level. The 
Discussion Group convenes on Sunday, June 25th, from 4:00 =96 
5:30PM in Evangeline Suite of the Royal Sonesta Hotel.

For more information, visit the SPARC Web site at 
<http://www.arl.org/sparc/> and the SPARC Open Data email 
discussion list at <http://www.arl.org/sparc/opendata/>.

SPARC

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and 
SPARC Europe are an international alliance of more than 300 
academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in 
the scholarly publishing system.  SPARC=92s advocacy, 
educational, and publisher partnership programs encourage 
expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is located on the Web 
at http://www.arl.org/sparc; SPARC Europe is at 
http://www.sparceurope.org.


ACRL

ACRL is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), 
representing more than 13,000 academic and research librarians 
and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual 
membership organization in North America that develops programs, 
products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and 
research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education 
community to understand the role that academic libraries play in 
the teaching, learning and research environments.

-------------------------------------
Jennifer Heffelfinger
Communications Manager
SPARC
jennifer@arl.org
(202) 296-2296 x121
Fax: (202) 872-0884
www.arl.org/sparc