Dear cni-announce subscribers:

The University of Kansas Libraries, Open Access Network, Allen Press and SPARC are jointly sponsoring an international symposium, “Envisioning a World Beyond APCs/BPCs,” in Lawrence, Kan., on Thursday and Friday, November 17-18. The symposium will consider the several models available for achieving an expansive, inclusive and balanced worldwide open publishing ecosystem.

The symposium will provide a live-streamed session during which internationally respected scholars, publishers, university librarians and executives from foundations and organizations will address advanced questions and problems in the open access movement. Additional symposium meetings will explore the future of “openness” in scholarly publishing, as well as responding to and furthering discussions from last December’s Berlin 12 Open Access invitational conference, which focused on “flipping” the current subscription model of scholarly publishing to one that provides free access to readers paid for by article-processing charges from authors or their institutions.

Kevin L. Smith, dean of KU Libraries, will moderate the live-streamed conversation on Thursday, November 17 from 10 a.m.-12 noon CST. By streaming part of the symposium, the organizers hope to engage a broad international audience in a lively discussion. During the broadcast, panelists will describe their vision for an open access future. Panelists, local respondents and the global viewing audience will engage together in thought-provoking dialogue to address one of the most fundamental questions in the open access movement: To what extent can a global academic community create an open access publishing system that is without costs to readers or authors?

“KU Libraries are honored to host such a distinguished group of cutting-edge thinkers,” said Smith. “We expect the dialogue that takes place here as a result of this meeting to have transformational impact on scholarly communications, moving us toward a more global and inclusive vision of the ecosystem of scholarship.”

Bob Kieft, chair of the board of directors of K|N Consultants, an organization that partners with institutions to support open access, added, “I couldn't be happier that a casual conversation last winter with colleagues at KU has led to this symposium. Given our Open Access Network's initial emphasis on large-scale funding models for humanistic and social science disciplines and KU's distinguished institutional commitment to open access publishing, we look forward to working with our cosponsors Allen Press and SPARC and our eminent group of participants on better ways for making scholarship available to all.”

The following international group of participants will be joining the symposium at KU: Juan Pablo Alperin, Simon Fraser University; Ivy Anderson, California Digital Library; Raym Crow, SPARC; Mark Edington, Amherst College Press; Martin Eve, University of London / Open Library of the Humanities; Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Modern Language Association of America; Eve Gray, Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme; Jean-Claude Guédon, Université de Montréal; Lorraine Haricombe, University of Texas - Austin Libraries; Neil Jacobs, JISC; Heather Joseph, SPARC; Rebecca Kennison, K|N Consultants / Open Access Network; Mary Rose Muccie, Temple University Press; Williams Nwagwu, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa; Charlotte Roh, University of San Francisco; Ralf Schimmer, Max Planck Institute; Kathleen Shearer, COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories); Dave Shulenburger, Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities; and John Willinsky, Stanford University.

Participants from KU will include faculty members Marc L. Greenberg, director of the School of Language, Literatures, & Cultures and professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Town Peterson, distinguished professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Representing the libraries will be Kevin L. Smith, dean of Libraries; Ada Emmett, librarian and director of the Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright; Brian Rosenblum, scholarly digital initiatives librarian; Josh Bolick, scholarly communication librarian; and Musa Olaka, associate librarian for African, global, and international studies.

Please mark your calendars, follow updates on the symposium website, and participate via Twitter during the livestream on November 17 using #KUOASymp16. If you have questions or comments, please contact the symposium planners Emmett, Kennison, and Kieft at lib_oscc@ku.edu.