 |
|
|
|
|
eIFL.net Newsletter
No. 34 - July/August 2008 (Summer issue)
1. eIFL-related NewsKyrgyzstan under the eIFL SpotlightOur new success story “Kyrgyzstan: promoting professional and personal development” takes us to learn how the Kyrgyzstan Library Information Consortium (KLIC) is managing to create a Kyrgyz “information space” in order to promote social, cultural, educational and scientific development, and to foster library integration into the global information community. This interesting story highlights how access to electronic information benefits library users in their daily life, by providing lively experiences by local scientists, researchers and students. It also shows how KLIC is contributing to the global visibility of scientific content produced in the country, by setting up the first OAI compliant open archive in Central Asia. Please read the full story as well as other stories at www.eifl.net. Print friendly version has also photos.Future gazing - let's share our vision for the eIFL networkThe advisory board meeting on July 6th was extended by a 2 day *visioning* retreat with invited outsiders bringing different perspectives to the discussion about eIFL's future directions. The world is constantly changing around us and eIFL has to be sure to continue to provide the most up-to-date and relevant programs and services to its members in years to come. It was good therefore to step back and see ourselves through the eyes of experts in the library, knowledge access and creation, and ICT4D fields. We were heartened by their appreciation of eIFL's programs and inspired by their input to our refreshing eIFL vision and strategies. The *environmental scan* - a document surveying key changes in the world around us expected to impact on library services in the next 5 years - and an analytical report of the discussions will be made available to members soon and will form the background to a session at the GA about the eIFL vision. The eIFL board and team are indebted to all the advisors who freely gave their valuable time and expertise to make sure eIFL delivers what member consortia need. Our thank you goes to Mark Surman, facilitator and Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow; Sunil Abraham, Director of mahiti.org; Sreten Ugricic, Director of the National Library of Serbia; Anriette Esterhuysen, APC Executive Director; Jean Claude Guèdon, University of Montreal; Teresa Peters, Senior Programme Officer for Global Libraries, Gates Foundation; Istvan Rev, OSI, Open Society Archive and Central European University; Quinn Norton, Journalist and Blogger; Aaron Swartz, Open Library Project; and Ed Valauskas, Founder and Chief Editor of First Monday.Announcement about upcoming elections to eIFL Advisory BoardThe term of office of Hannie Sander, Emilija Banionyte and Jan Andrzej Nikisch as members of the eIFL.net Advisory Board will be ending with our General Assembly meeting in November in Sofia, Bulgaria. All of them served two terms of office on the Board and is unfortunate that they are not eligible to be re-nominated for the Board. Three new members should be elected at the General Assembly in Sofia, Bulgaria. The call for nominations will be open from August 28th till October 9th 2008.2. Upcoming eIFL Events in July-August 2008eIFL.net accepted the invitation to ´be a member of the DRIVER Advisory Board and participated in the first meeting held in conjunction with the LIBER 37th Annual General Conference, Koç University, Istanbul, on July 2. More information on DRIVER - Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research is available at www.driver-repository.eu; www.driver-support.euBuhle Mbambo-Thata represented eIFL at the conference “Locating the power on In-between: Extending the communication and uptake of development research in Southern Africa”, Centurion Lake Hotel, Pretoria South Africa, on July 1-2. eIFL was presentated on the panel: "The changing world of research communication". 17th eIFL Advisory Board meeting and eIFL visioning retreat took place in Cupramontana, Italy, on July 6-8. Minutes of the Advisory Board meeting will be available in two weeks time. Iryna Kuchma will give a set of talks on “Using Open Acces Models for Science Dissemination” at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, on July 7-16. A better understanding on what Open Access is and examples of what it offers to individual scientists and to scientific institutions in developing countries will be presented. More details can be found at sdu.ictp.it On July 10-11, Susan Veldsman hosted and convened the Greenstone pilot project final meeting in Benoni, Johannesburg, for sub regional and national coordinators of Southern Africa. More details of the meeting together with the programme can be seen at www.eifl.net. On July 14, Teresa Hackett eIFL-IP presented a paper "Copyright and Access to Knowledge: global trends and library activism" at the Standing Conference of African National and University Libraries of Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (SCANUL-ECS) meeting in Zambia with the theme “Copyright and Intellectual Property Issues” this year. Please see www.scecsal.org for further details. Susan Veldsman will attend the SCECSAL meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, on July 14-18. The programme and additional information are placed at www.scecsal.org Iryna Kuchma will participate in Wikimania 2008, hosted by the Library of Alexandria, Egypt, on July 17-19. eIFL OA will give the presentation "eIFL Open Access: Use, Share and Remix" and co-organise the discussion "Open Access: How to Create Change" with Melissa Hagemann, Open Society Institute. More information about Wikimania 2008 is available at wikimania2008.wikimedia.org Susan Veldsman will conduct the e-resource training “How to use, manage and promote your e-resources effectively” to the Zambian consortium at Kitwe, Zambia, on July 23. The Academy of Sciences of South Africa will host an “Editorial Forum” on July 24 and Susan Veldsman will attend the meeting. On July 28-30, Aissa Mitha Issak, eIFL country coordinator in Mozambique, and Eloy Rodrigues, Universidade do Minho, Portugal, with support from eIFL.net are organising Open Access and Institutional Repository workshop in Mozambique on July, 28-30. More information will be posted at www.eifl.net On August 2-4, the Kyrgyz Libraries Information Consortium (KLIC) and eIFL.net will give a set of talks about benefits of Open Access for students and alumni on the occasion of the BarCamp Central Asia. On August 3, KLIC and eIFL.net will co-organise an Open Access awareness raising workshop for Kyrgyz libraries and academic community at the Library of American University of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan. More information will be soon available at www.eifl.net On August 7, Rima Kupryte and Helena Assamoah Hasan will participate at the IFLA Academic and Research Libraries Section Satellite Meeting “Consortia and Collaborative Arrangements” to be held in Quebec. Read on the meeting at www.ifla.org On August 13, Emilija Banionyte will present the paper “Access to online resources in Social Sciences in Lithuania” at the meeting of IFLA social sciences section for the Division on Special Libraries "Borderless collections in the social sciences: platforms for digital access, dissemination, and preservation”. She will talk about the role of eIFL to the development of the Lithuanian Research Library Association. Additional details are at www.ifla.org On August 14, Teresa Hackett eIFL-IP will present “Libraries in the digital age: minimum copyright provisions” at the CLM session “Users’ rights: making copyright work for libraries” during IFLA in Quebec. Please read further at www.ifla.org/IV 3. Update on Negotiations ProgrammeOngoing negotiations for 2008eIFL.net is in advanced talks with ScienceOnline, Nature Publishing and the American Psychological Association and we hope that in our September Newsletter we will be able to report on agreements signed with them.Series of training eventsYet another eIFL e-resource training event will be taking place in Kitwe, Zambia, on July 23. “How to use, manage and promote your e-resources effectively” workshop will be attended by local librarians and will cover a number of areas, including:
Publisher meetings in South AfricaDuring the week of June 3-6 the South African Online User Group (SAOUG) Conference took place in South Africa. The SAOUG provides a forum for librarians of all sectors and publishers to exchange information on current developments, applications and opportunities in the expanding field of online information in the broadest sense.On June 6 a publisher product demonstration was held at UNISA, Pretoria, co-organised by Susan Veldsman to give an opportunity for publishers to make a demo of their products and to recap on their offers to the South African Library and Information Consortium. Feedback from participants shows that this was a long overdue event and a very valuable one. eIFL collection and analysis of dataeIFL has undertaken a study to estimate the cost per full text download for 2006 and 2007 for the following publishers: EBSCO, Wiley, Emerald, IoP, Oxford Journals and Sage. In addition overall savings for 2007 through negotiations by eIFL per country and per publisher are now available for eIFL national consortia. Both documents are available through eIFL coordinators that have access to the members only section of the website.4. Update on eIFL-IPRoad test at the Mortenson Center: “Copyright for Librarians: a Distance Learning Course”We are delighted that the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the US has agreed to road test the eIFL copyright course for librarians, under development at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Selected course modules will be piloted online in the autumn term to new students from Palestine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Kenya, Bahrain, Iraq, Colombia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, who will complete the course when they return home. We will receive feedback on course content, structure and format. Susan Schnuer, Associate Director, will be assisted by Janice Pilch, Assistant Professor at the University’s Slavic and East European Library, who also holds the US Library Copyright Alliance portfolio for the WIPO Development Agenda.We are also seeking to work with institutions to implement the course into existing curricula. Former eIFL board member, Dr. Buhle Mbambo-Thata, and Ms Valentina Bannerman, eIFL-IP representative from Ghana, will present a briefing paper on behalf of eIFL at a meeting of the IFLA Africa Section in Nigeria in July, which is undertaking a strategic review of library school curricula in Africa. “Interesting times for intellectual property” says new WIPO chiefOn May 13, WIPO Member States nominated Mr. Francis Gurry, a national of Australia, to be the new Director General when DG Kamil Idris steps down one year early in September. Mr. Gurry won the election by just one vote after a hard second round race between candidates from Brazil and Pakistan. Mr. Gurry is currently Deputy Director General for PCT and Patents, Arbitration and Mediation Center, and Global Intellectual Property Issues. Traditional knowledge (TK) and traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) fall under this division.It is only the third time in WIPO’s history that an election for the DG post has been held, and historically the selection procedure has been closed. To encourage transparency and in the spirit of the Development Agenda, civil society organisations invited the candidates to an open webcast meeting with NGOs in April in Geneva. Candidates also had the opportunity to respond in writing to questions including their top three top priorities if elected, how civil society can be better integrated into WIPO processes, and what action would they take when countries express concern over the negative impact of IPRs in areas such as education, libraries, access to medicines and climate change technologies. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Gurry stressed the importance of a robust and effective Development Agenda for the future of WIPO. Once the new DG is officially in place after September’s General Assembly, eIFL, together with the international library community, will request a meeting to ensure that the needs of library users throughout the world are taken into account in WIPO’s activities. Civil society webcast with candidates, www.ciel.org WIPO Coordination Committee, www.wipo.int 5. eIFL-OA NewsOpen Access Awareness Raising workshop in GeorgiaOn May 14-15, the Georgian Integrated Library & Information System Consortium (GILISC) and eIFL.net jointly organised the workshop “Open Access: New Models for Scholarly Communication”. Hosted by the Ilia Chavchavadze State University, the workshop addressed Open Access policies and recommendations and highlighted the benefits of Open Access journals and Open repositories. As a result, workshop participants have created a National Open Access working group. More information and presentations from the workshop are available at www.eifl.netStudy visit of repository managers to UkraineOn June 18-21, Informatio Consortium, National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” and eIFL.net organised a study visit of repository managers from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan to Ukraine. Together with their Ukrainian colleagues they discussed strategies for securing faculty and administration support, management, copyright and interoperability issues, etc. Additional details can be viewed at www.eifl.netOpen Access: Exploring Scholarly Communication – a workshop in MoldovaOn June 23-24, Consortium eIFL Direct Moldova and eIFL.net organised a workshop Open Access: Exploring Scholarly Communication at the Moldova Economics Academy premises in Chisinau. Librarians, scholars and researchers discussed the benefits of Open Access journals and Open repositories, agreed on the need for better promotion of existing Moldavian OA journals and open repository of Moldavian dissertations and decided to work on Open Access declaration and pilot OAI-compliant repository projects. More information and presentations from the workshop are available at www.eifl.net6. eIFL-FOSS ProgrammeAccount of first eIFL FOSS ILS workshopOn June 10-11, the eIFL-FOSS ILS project held its training workshop in Yerevan, Armenia. The event was brilliantly hosted by the Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences. 18 people took part in the intensive hands-on training for the Evergreen and Koha integrated library systems, including technical leads from each of the pilot sites and additional participants from the American University of Armenia and the LCC International University of Lithuania.All were appreciative of the efforts of our invited experts: Dan Scott of Laurentian University in Canada, and Henri-Damien Laurent of BibLibre in France. Both Dan and Henri-Damien were tireless in their efforts (over the two-days, approximately 80% of the time was spent in hands-on computer work). Their knowledge and experience as key developers of Evergreen and Koha respectively made all the difference as participants had the opportunity to learn not just about the software but also how these participants in these FOSS communities engage with each other. Regrettably our colleagues from Nepal and the Palestinian Territories faced severe travel difficulties and were unable to attend. However, they have since been receiving direct support from Dan Scott and Henri-Damien Laurent in order to ensure that their pilots are well on the way. The pilot sites for the eIFL-FOSS ILS project are:
Case studies of each pilot’s experiences will be published on the eIFL web site during the life of the project. More details about the project and the pilot sites can be found in the eIFL FOSS program area of our site at www.eifl.net The eIFL Team
|
eIFL news
Upcoming events
Member Countries
|
|
Login
