Canadian University Starts an Author's Fund

Observers of the open access movement are well aware of the cost issues involved in open access publishing. Open access journals operate on the principle that scholarly research should be freely available to all, but inevitably the publication of those journals requires funding. One of the models for raising funds has been for publishers to charge author's fees when an author wishes to provide open access to the published article. There have been a number of funding solutions to cover author's costs, and one has been financial support from the author's institution. Last month, the University of Calgary announced that it would create a special fund to cover this kind of expense for its faculty. The following text is from the university's announcement:

University of Calgary professors and graduate students will now have access to a $100,000 Open Access Authors Fund designed to increase the amount of publicly available research. The new fund, announced today by Thomas Hickerson, Vice-Provost, Libraries and Cultural Resources and University Librarian, is the first of its magnitude in Canada. “I am proud that the University of Calgary is taking leadership in this movement to increase the worldwide accessibility of cutting-edge research,” said Hickerson.