For Immediate Release
April 18, 2006
For more information, contact:
Alison Buckholtz, alison arl.org
SPARC RECOGNIZES HERBERT VAN DE SOMPEL FOR OUTSTANDING
CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION
New SPARC Innovator Program Acknowledges Individuals,
Institutions, and
Groups Whose Actions Change the Status Quo
Washington, DC
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources
Coalition)
has named Herbert Van de Sompel, who leads the Digital
Library
Research and Prototyping Team at the Research Library of the
Los
Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), as the first SPARC
Innovator.
The SPARC Innovator program is a new initiative that
recognizes
an individual, institution, or group that exemplifies SPARC
principles by working to challenge the status quo in
scholarly
communication for the benefit of researchers, libraries,
universities, and the public. SPARC Innovators will be
featured
on the SPARC Web site each month.
Herbert Van de Sompel, the first SPARC Innovator, is the
initiator of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) and the open
reference linking framework (OpenURL). The Open Archives
Initiative develops and promotes interoperability standards
that
aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content,
and it
has had wide-ranging influence on a variety of other
initiatives
within the open access and institutional repository
movements.
To read more about Van de Sompel, please see the SPARC
Innovator
Web page at <http://www.a
rl.org/sparc/innovator/>.
"Herbert is one of our leading thinkers on system
architecture,"
said Clifford Lynch, executive director of the Coalition for
Networked Information (CNI), who has worked extensively with
Van
de Sompel. "What's striking to me, however, is the
extent to
which his work in this area is driven by his commitment to
improving information flow and information access within the
global system of scholarly communication. This gives his
work a
concreteness and focus, a validation and verification,
that's
very important to its quality and depth."
"Herbert Van de Sompel paired a background in
technology with a
vision of a new infrastructure for information. He brought
tremendous dedication and perseverance to the task of
finding
support and making the connections necessary to see this
vision
through," said Heather Joseph, SPARC Executive
Director. "He
used his intellect as well as street smarts to make the Open
Archives Initiative and OpenURL a reality, and both projects
have
laid the foundation for research and scholarship to become
available to more people than ever before. Herbert's work
on
global, digital workflow has advanced scholarly
communication by
leaps and bounds, and his commitment to changing the status
quo
makes him a worthy recipient of the SPARC Innovator
award."
"I am thrilled to be the first SPARC Innovator, and I
appreciate
the recognition from my peers enormously," Van de
Sompel said.
"The one thing with recognitions like these is they
tend to put
additional pressure on, like people asking what the next big
thing is you're working on. I wish I had an answer; I
don't
because one never really knows whether a thing is big until
it
actually is. This recognition will help me to keep focus and
remain determined."
SPARC Innovators are named by the SPARC staff in
consultation
with the SPARC Steering Committee. Individuals can nominate
their colleagues as potential SPARC Innovators at
<http://www.a
rl.org/sparc/innovator/>. Criteria include but are
not limited to a commitment to:
* Reducing barriers to access, sharing, and use of
scholarship,
particularly in the scientific research field;
* Advancing the understanding and implementation of open
access to
research results;
* Working to create a balanced scholarly communication
system;
* Use of technology to develop alternative publishing and
communication solutions;
* Refusing to be constrained by the status quo and
implementing
new and creative ideas that are backed by research;
* Vision of the library as a focus for and/or supporter of
change;
* The belief that individual actions can have a profound and
positive impact in the scholarly communication field.
A SPARC Innovator can be an individual, a group of people,
an
institution, or another group that has been active in the
areas
listed above. Their actions may be broadly defined and may
include online activity (i.e., postings on listservs and Web
sites); on-campus programs and conferences; writing and
editing
(i.e., articles and books); promoting awareness and activism
among others; and creating technologies and/or programs.
There is
no monetary award for SPARC Innovators.
For further information, please see the SPARC Web site at
http://www.arl.org/sparc/.
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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's 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.or
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