From Jennifer McLennan for SPARC, on behalf of the organizers

MAY 16, 2011

Welcome to the new, official Web site for the Berlin 9 Open Access Conference! Plans continue to come together as we prepare the first installment of this important meeting to take place in North America – November 9 &10, at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, outside Washington, DC. (Please note that pre-conferences for November 8 are also being discussed).

The Berlin 9 program committee is working diligently to deliver a deep and engaging program on the role that open online access to knowledge can play in accelerating the conduct and communication of scholarship and the opportunities this presents to the funders, creators, and end users of information – with a particular focus on the impact this can have on the public.

The organizers are grateful for the ongoing and not-insignificant contributions of the program committee, which brings together the science, humanities, research, funding and policy communities, and includes:
 

• Prudence Adler, Associate Executive Director, Federal Relations and Information Policy, Association of Research Libraries
• Georg W. Botz, Open Access Policy Advisor, Administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society
• Christoph Bruch, Open Access Policy, Max Planck Digital Library
• Leslie Chan, Associate Director, BioLine and Program Supervisor, Joint Program in New Media Studies and International Development Studies, University of Toronto
• Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Director of Scholarly Communication, Modern Language Association
• Melissa Hagemann, Senior Program Manager, Information Program, Open Society Foundations
• Heather Joseph, Executive Director, SPARC
• Manfred Laubichler, Arizona State University, Max Planck Institute, Marine Biological Laboratory
• Anja Lengenfelder, Open Access Policy, Max Planck Digital Library
• Rick Luce, Library Director, Emory University
• Cathy Norton, Library Scholar, Marine Biological Laboratory, Chair Institutional Council, Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Juergen Renn, Director, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
• Frank Sander, Head, Max Planck Digital Library
• Ralf Schimmer, Max Planck Digital Library
• Bernard Schutz, Director, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
• Stuart Shieber, Director, Office for Scholarly Communication, Harvard University
• Dieter Stein, Professor of English Language and Linguistics, Heinrich Heine University
• Winston Tabb, Library Director, Johns Hopkins University
• Chuck Thomas, Senior Program Officer, Office of Library Services, Institute of Museum and Library Services
• Ellen Tise, Senior Director, Library Services, Stellenbosch University
• Paul Uhlir, Director, Board on Research Data and Information, U.S. National Academy of Sciences
• Xiaolin Zhang, Executive Director, National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences

A number of our program committee members and others are also working to make sure the meeting goes off smoothly behind the scenes, on our “organizing committee.” See http://www.berlin9.org/about/organizers/index.shtml for the full list.

Speakers will be invited by the program committee and should be announced in summer. If you’re interested in sharing your ideas or work, please consider the call for posters that will be opened this spring.

Over the coming weeks, this site will be your source for news on the program, posters, speakers, and more. To stay up to date on news as it happens, sign up for our email list (http://sparc.arl.org/civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1&gid=28), join us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=116384238445001), or follow #berlin9 on Twitter.