<font size="2"><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif">[Forwarding from University of Hong Kong. --Peter Suber.]<br><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial"><br></font></font></font><div class="gmail_quote"><br>PRESS RELEASE<br>
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University of Hong Kong signs Open Choice agreement with Springer</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br>
Asian open access pilot project to run for one year<br>
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Hong Kong / Berlin / London, 22 February 2010</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br><div class="gmail_quote">The University of Hong Kong Libraries and Springer have reached an agreement which allows researchers at the affiliated institutions of The University of Hong Kong (HKU) to publish their research in Springer journals using Springer Open ChoiceTM. Springer's Open Choice program offers full and immediate open access (free to the reader) for articles that are accepted for publication after a process of rigorous peer-review. Accepted HKU articles will appear as usual in Springer print journals, and will be published electronically using open access on SpringerLink, PubMed Central, and the HKU institutional repository, The HKU Scholars Hub. The pilot project will run from March 2010 to March 2011.</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">Professor Paul Tam, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, and Director of the Knowledge Exchange Office at HKU, said: "The amount of cutting-edge research done at The University of Hong Kong has increased dramatically. It is important to also increase access to this research, and thereby secure all the benefits that this research can bring to the public who funded it. The Springer Open Choice is a good first step in that direction!"</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">Professor Jan van Aalst, Springer author at the Faculty of Education of The University of Hong Kong added, "I usually choose a journal in which to publish by the community it serves. However all other things being equal, I prefer to publish in an open access journal. In this case, using Springer's Open Choice, I found that my article was discovered much more quickly."</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">"Making HKU's research available to all interested parties in open access format is a key goal of our Knowledge Exchange Initiative, which holds that publicly-funded universities should return the results of their research to the communities that funded them." added Professor Tam.</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">"Several researchers at HKU have already used Springer's Open Choice service on their own. We are, however, very pleased that we gained such a key academic institution to carry out this pilot project. We value very highly the opportunity to further develop exciting new publishing models in close cooperation with yet another respected institution," said Peter Hendriks, President STM Global Publishing & Marketing at Springer.</div>
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Notes to editor:<br>
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About The University of Hong Kong<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">Founded in 1911, HKU is Hong Kong's oldest university, with a long heritage of academic excellence and service to the community. Today, HKU is a world-class comprehensive research-led university, with close to a hundred of its faculty ranked by the Institute for Scientific Information as being among the world's top 1% of scientists (<a href="http://www.hku.hk">http://www.hku.hk</a>).</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">The HKU Scholars Hub is the institutional repository of HKU, begun in 2005. It collects, preserves, and showcases the intellectual output of HKU, now numbering over 25,000 items, with over 1 million downloads in 2009. The Hub is a key vehicle to enable and measure HKU's Knowledge Exchange initiative. (<a href="http://hub.hku.hk">http://hub.hku.hk</a>).</div>
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About Springer Science+Business Media<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">Springer Science+Business Media (<a href="http://www.springer.com">www.springer.com</a>) is a leading global scientific publisher, delivering quality content through innovative information products and services. The company is also a trusted provider of local-language professional publications in Europe, especially in Germany and the Netherlands. In the science, technology and medicine (STM) sector, the group publishes around 2,000 journals and more than 6,500 new books a year, as well as the largest STM eBook Collection worldwide. Springer has operations in about 20 countries in Europe, the USA, and Asia, and more than 5,000 employees. In 2008, it generated annual sales of around EUR 880 million.</div>
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Contacts:<br>
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David Palmer | Scholarly Communications Coordinator | University Libraries<br>
| The University of Hong Kong | +852 2859 7004 | <a href="mailto:dtpalmer@hku.hk">dtpalmer@hku.hk</a><br>
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Eric Merkel-Sobotta | Springer Science+Business Media | +49 30 82 787 5431 |<br>
<a href="mailto:eric.merkel-sobotta@springer.com">eric.merkel-sobotta@springer.com</a><br>
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