New International Alliance
Aims to Broaden Scholarly Research

Eight research library organizations have jointly formed an initiative to collaborate with scholars and publishers in establishing equitable access to scholarly publications. The International Scholarly Communications Alliance, whose members represent more than 600 research libraries worldwide, will act as a unified body to create policies and provide viable approaches to ensure open and affordable access to scholarship across national boundaries.

The initial members of ISCA are:

• The Association of Japanese National University Libraries
• The Association of Research Libraries
• The Canadian Association of Research Libraries
• The Consortium of University Research Libraries, U.K.
• The Council of Australian University Librarians
• The Council of New Zealand Librarians
• The Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche
• The Joint University Librarians Advisory Committee, Hong Kong SAR, China

ISCA will promote such advocacy programs as SPARC and SPARC-Europe, ARL-initiated efforts to create high-quality alternatives to scientific journal publishing; and the establishment of archives that allow public access to content and employ the Open Archives Metadata Harvesting Protocol for supporting distributed networked information content.

Posted February 11, 2002.