Igniting Change in Scholarly Communication: SPARC, Its Past, Present, and Future

This paper will explore the success of an initiative—SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition—launched by the library community to begin to address the scholarly communication crisis. Understanding that libraries are but one stakeholder in scholarly communication, SPARC was designed to build partnerships with scholarly publishers and scientists in its efforts to create change. This particular paper, however, will address the issues and the progress of SPARC through the perspective of libraries.