As a free, open access journal, Information Research has no income from subscriptions. It is published on the basis of sponsorship: in addition to my own input, there is sponsorship in kind from Lund University Libraries, which hosts the journal and provides technical support, and from the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, which provides some editorial support, and from all those institutions who employ the Associate Editors and members of the Editorial Board, who play a role in soliciting manuscripts and refereeing papers. As the journal develops, however, it is becoming necessary to seek further sponsorship to enable the employment of part-time staff who can assist with proof-reading and the preparation of material for publication. Consequently, we are seeking further sponsorship of three kinds: in-kind support, direct gift, and advertising.

In-kind support. Support of this kind could take the form of assigning locally-based people to assist with proof-reading a copy preparation. For the former, something in the order of 10% of a person's time would probably be sufficient at present; for copy preparation, which involves a knowledge of xhtml, perhaps 20% would be sufficient. In both cases, the work is not evenly spread over a year, but clumps around the publication dates - January, April, July and October.

Direct gift. This speaks for itself! If you wish to support Information Research in this way, simply mail [email protected] for information on how to do so.

Advertising. Organizations can buy space for their logo on the top page of the journal at the rate of £0.20 per pixel. A version of the top page is available to show how this will work. This part of the page is a clickable map and sponsors may determine which page on their site the logo should link to. Thus, a publisher with a special page for librarians may wish to link to that page, or a computer manufacturer with a page on their educational terms may wish to link to that page. The amount of space available is limited, as may be seen, and, consequently, the number of organizations that will be able to sponsor in this way is also limited. The size of the logo, and, hence, the cost is entirely for the organization itself to decide. I would also be happy to create an 'educational sponsors' page for schools and departments in the field covered by the journal on a similar basis. An educational institution might wish, for example, to link to a page on its research activities, or to a student recruitment page, or to its own top page.

Information Research is quite a 'sticky' site: some 30 percent of hits on the top page come from within the site and the site as a whole receives some 300,000 hits a month. The journal is also listed in hundreds of university library catalogues around the world as well as in thousands of personal bookmark lists: consequently, the probability of a sponsored link being used to refer to the source page is high and we could quite easily find the page being used as a short-cut to referring to frequently used sites.

I shall be happy to discuss sponsorship ideas with anyone who has a particular mode of support in mind which does not fit what I have outlined above.

Professor T.D. Wilson
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief