Dean of Libraries Steve Smith has been elected to the Steering Committee of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition).

SPARC is an international coalition of academic and research libraries dedicated to advancing the open sharing of research outputs and educational materials in order to democratize access to knowledge, accelerate discovery, and increase return on investment in research and education.

Smith sees the SPARC appointment as “a great opportunity to forward the cause of open access and making scholarly research available to everyone, everywhere, at any time.”

The UT Libraries has a long history of commitment to Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education — including promoting publication in open access journals and the adoption of open textbooks, and encouraging faculty to self-archive their research in the university’s institutional repository, Trace (Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange).

Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC, welcomed Smith to a three-year term on the steering committee: “We are thrilled to welcome Steve to SPARC’s leadership team. His deep knowledge of critical scholarly communications issues combined with his orientation towards action make him a perfect fit for the Steering Committee; we’re looking forward to working with him.”

Smith’s term will run from January 2019 through December 2021.