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About the International Federation of Scholarly Publishers

Aims of the Federation

The Federation’s primary aim is to ensure that not-for-profit scholarly publishing is fostered and supported in all countries of the world, that the standards of not-for-profit scholarly publishing are maintained and enhanced, and that copyright and freedom to publish are strongly defended. It will do this through:

• providing an umbrella organisation through which the international exchange of ideas and good practice relating to not-for-profit scholarly publishing may be facilitated.
• establishing lines of communication and making available mutual advice and assistance on all aspects of not-for-profit scholarly publishing.

IFSP represents not-for-profit interests in publishing organisations such as IPA. We aim to coordinate lobbying on critical issues which specifically affect our members (such as copyright, e-commerce, databases and taxation). We will share information freely between our organisations, and will join forces when appropriate to collect statistical and other information about the not-for-profit publishing sector. We also aim to collaborate on the organisation of an international conference on not-for-profit publishing every few years, in order to foster personal contacts and information-sharing between publishers.

Organisation

Presidency of IFSP (and, thus, representation on the IPA committees) will rotate every three years between the member associations; the President will be elected by a majority vote of the members.

IFSP will operate as a ‘virtual organisation,' conducting most of its discussions and decision-making, including acceptance of new members, election of President, and common position statements on relevant issues, via the email listserv (see below). However, at least one face-to-face business meeting will be held annually at a suitable international event to reach decisions on policy, financial and organisational matters for the following calendar year (input will be sought before the meeting from those unable to attend); the next such meeting will be held at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2006.  

As a ‘virtual organisation’ the Federation’s initial secretariat requirements will be minimal: ALPSP has set up a listserv linking the secretariats of the participating associations, on which appropriate newsletters and other information will be shared between the member associations.