the number of articles approved, the number of authors who have used the fund, the number of unique journals in which these articles have been published, and so forth. These data, which SPARC intends to update regularly, are available online as a chart of “Open-Access Funds in Action.”5 This chart also contains a wealth of information about the policies and procedures associated with each institution’s fund implementation. Qualitatively, representatives from each of these institutions generously provided insights into their experiences and the lessons they have learned to date. This input informs many of the resources found on the SPARC open-access fund site, including the questions that key actors (administrators, authors, and publishers) typically raise about open-access funds. For a complete list of frequently asked questions, please visit the SPARC Web site.6 Open-access funds are a topic of much discussion within the scholarly communication community. The time is right for analysis and investigation of the use of these funds as a potentially valuable tool in expanding access to information. This suite of resources developed by SPARC will facilitate that effort. 1 For more on the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity, see http://www.oacompact.org/. 2 For more information, see the SPARC Web site http://www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/campus/. 3 Resources about open-access funds are available at http://www.arl.org/sparc/openaccess/funds/index.shtml. 4 “Campus-Based Open-Access Publishing Funds: A Practical Guide to Design and Implementation,” http://www.arl.org/sparc/openaccess/funds/guide.shtml. 5 “Open-Access Funds in Action,” http://www.arl.org/sparc/bm~doc/fundsinaction.pdf. 6 Frequently asked questions about open-access funds, http://www.arl.org/sparc/openaccess/funds/faq.shtml. © 2010 Greg Tananbaum This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial- Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/. To cite this article: Greg Tananbaum. “Improving Access with Open-Access Publishing Funds.” Research Library Issues: A Bimonthly Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC, no. 269 (April 2010): 8–10. http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/ rli/archive/rli269.shtml. RLI 269 10 Improving Access with Open-Access Publishing Funds ( C O N T I N U E D ) APRIL 2010 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC