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eIFL.net Newsletter
No. 38 - March-April 2009
1. eIFL.net-related NewseIFL.net General Assembly 2009We are very pleased to announce that Bibliotheca Alexandrina will be hosting eIFL 9th General Assembly 2009. We are still finalising the dates. This General Assembly will be memorable for a number of reasons: eIFL.net will celebrate its 10 years of existence, first as an Open Society Institute project and since 2003 as an independent foundation. Second, it will be our first GA in Africa, home to 17 of our member library consortia, which will add a very special touch to the event and last but not least we will be spending 3 intensive days in one of the very top libraries in the world which in itself will be a precious source of inspiration for the eIFL network. We look forward very much to working with Bibliotheca Alexandrina on the organization of this conference and we will keep the eIFL network duly informed on preparations. We plan to go web 2.0 in planning the GA unconference part, following our successful experiment in Sofia. So watch this space!Account of 19th Advisory Board meetingOn February 1-2, eIFL.net held its 19th Advisory board meeting in the Open Society Foundation premises in London. The meeting was preceded by a welcome session for the new Board members Kay Raseroka, Diana Sayej and Sreten Ugricic (please see current and former Board members www.eifl.net). Helena Asamoah-Hassan was elected to serve as a Chairperson of eIFL.net Advisory Board and Sreten Ugricic as Vice-Chair. The meeting approved the final version of the new eIFL strategic plan and looked forward to a full agenda of activities across all program areas during 2009. The next advisory board meeting will take place during IFLA in Milan.Minutes of the meeting are available in the MEMBERS ONLY area of our website, under “Advisory Board” section. New eIFL SpotlightA franglais title, “Viva le consortium COBESS – sur la bonne way avec l’eIFL!”, opens our latest success story. For the first time, our Spotlight focuses on one of the French-speaking countries that belong to the eIFL network, Senegal, and celebrates the remarkable progress made by the national consortium of Higher Education libraries since its creation in 2006. A young and dynamic consortium, eIFL.net has supported COBESS in its start up phase and continues this cooperation across all program areas. The consortium has grown country-wide by reaching out to other library stakeholders in the country at the professional, advocacy and funding levels.The full story is freely available at www.eifl.net. We say Merci to COBESS! Second visit to Mongolia for the Mellon-funded eIFL.net projecteIFL.net, with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and in cooperation with the Mongolian National Library and the Mongolian Consortium of Libraries will be holding a workshop on April 21-23 in Ulaan Baatar, within the framework of the project “Planning the future of the Mongolian National Library”.This workshop will bring together senior staff of the Mongolian National Library (MNL), key Mongolian stakeholders of the National Library including members of the eIFL.net consortium, and resource persons from other national libraries to assist the Mongolian National Library with the process of formulating a strategic plan covering the period from 2009 to the end of the first year of operation in the new MNL building. The main aim is to provide an opportunity to discuss inspiring examples from abroad (Singapore, Russia, Switzerland, the UK, Finland, Australia) to fire the imagination of the Mongolian stakeholders and provoke discussion leading to possible adaptation of appropriate elements to form part of a strategic plan for the Mongolian National Library. Inputs from Mongolian speakers will keep participants in touch with Mongolian reality. News about members’ library consortia-BulgariaA noteworthy yearly training effort for librarians of the Bulgarian Information Consortium BIC, the Technology Day Conference 2009, will be held in partnership with the Library of the American University in Bulgaria (AUBG) on March 5. Details of the conference and the full program are available at www.eifl.net. -Kenya Kenya Libraries and Information Services Consortium KLISC is organizing a Digital Repositories workshop in the University of Nairobi on March 18-20. Last year eIFL-OA country coordinator Agatha Kabugu, University of Nairobi, received funding from INASP to participate in the University of Pretoria Workshop on Digital Repositories. This year a member of the library staff went on a study visit to the University of Pretoria to gather more knowledge regarding open access institutional repositories. This knowledge sharing is the backbone of the Digital Repositories workshop. Participants are expected from all the six public universities and nine private universities in Kenya as well as the National Library and National Archives. The workshop will create awareness about open access institutional repositories among the members. The University of Nairobi is developing an open access institutional repository to act as a pilot, which can be expanded to a national project. Contact person: Agatha Kabugu, eIFL-OA country coordinator, University of Nairobi, akabugu AT uonbi.ac.ke -Lithuania Emilija Banionyte and Ausra Vaskeviciene on behalf of the Lithuanian Research Libraries Consortium LMBA want to share this sad news with all of us. Audrone was a dear person to eIFL.net: “On January 26 the Director General of Vilnius University Library Prof. Audrone Glosiene passed away. She was our resource person for trainings and lots of eIFL members benefited from her professional knowledge that she so generously shared. We do miss her.” -Malawi Dr. Pascal Hoba, Coordinator of the Database of African Thesis and Dissertations (DATAD, www.aau.org) of the Association of African Universities based in Accra, Ghana, paid a visit to Malawi on February 16-18. The visit was a prerequisite for the donation of digitization equipment to the national consortium MALICO. Dr. Hoba held discussions with MALICO members and also visited several MALICO institutions in Lilongwe. The equipment will take MALICO a step ahead in its digitization efforts. Kondwani Wella, eIFL IP Country Coordinator, attended The WIPO African Regional Seminar on the Issues and Recent Developments of the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) held in Lilongwe, Malawi, on January 26-27. The main objective of the Seminar was to share the African experiences with regard to accession to the WCT and WPPT (Internet Treaties) given the fact that very few African countries have acceded to the two treaties regardless of Africa’s critical role in the formulation of the same in 1996. Mr Dick Kawooya represented eIFL.net on a panel "Balancing the Protection of Creativity and the Public Interest: the Role of Exceptions and Limitations in the Digital Age". -Moldova National consortium eIFL Direct Moldova is organising a series of training and information events for the next two months. On April, 7, eIFL Direct Moldova will hold a plenary meeting where President and eIFL country coordinator Silvia Ghinculova will report to members on activities and seek the approving of the agenda for 2009; the consortium will discuss how to optimize libraries budgets during the current economic crisis. On April, 14 the consortium will present to members scientific e-journals for which subscriptions for this year have been arranged. -Palestine PALICO member libraries of Gaza and West Bank met on February 24 and 25 respectively to talk about future projects for the consortium. They agreed to advance work for the official registration of the consortium and to build a website to be hosted by University of Birzeit. In addition, PALICO welcomed 4 new member libraries on board, Palestine Ahliya University College -Bethlehem and Palestine Technical University (Kadoorie) Toulkarem in the West Bank and University of Palestine and Gaza University for Girls in Gaza. -Senegal On February 5-6, the Consortium of the Libraries of the Higher education of Senegal COBESS in partnership with the Senegalese Association of the Librarians, Archivists and Information officer (ASBAD) and the School of Librarians, Archivists and Information professionals (EBAD) organized a national train the trainers' seminar on building and managing digital libraries with the open source software Greenstone. The seminar was conducted by Pier Luigi Rossi, a formative expert of the Institute for the Research and Development (IRD) and has helped library and information management professionals to strengthen their skills to develop sustainable digital libraries and incorporate latest applications in their work agenda. A result of this event is the declaration of common will by the 3 organising communities for further cooperation at the training level. -Uzbekistan Under the supervision of Marat Rakhmatullaev of the National Library and eIFL country coordinator, Tashkent University of Information Technologies, National Library of Uzbekistan and KARMAT Ltd will hold the seminar “Technologies of Scientific, Educational and Technical Information Development and Use of Electronic Library Networks” in Tashkent and Samarkand on March 17-21. The seminar will address problems surrounding usage of electronic information by libraries and educational institutes and will include presentations by top academic content providers and by automated library systems solutions as well as a training session for participants on the management of electronic databases. Additional details about the seminar and the full program can be viewed at www.eifl.net. 2. eIFL.net Events in March-April 2009§ On March 16-17, Iryna Kuchma (eIFL-OA) will participate in the International Repositories Workshop - an international agenda for action on repositories infrastructure. For more details please visit www.ukoln.ac.uk. § On March 26-28, the Second Global eIFL-IP conference will take place in Istanbul, Turkey attended by eIFL-IP representatives and the project team. Program available at: www.eifl.net § On April 15-16, Teresa Hackett (eIFL-IP) will attend the 17th Annual Intellectual Property Law and Policy conference organised by the Fordham Law IP Institute in Cambridge, UK. § On April 21-23, Monika Segbert will conduct the second workshop at the National Library of Mongolia. See news item above. § On April 22-23, Iryna Kuchma is organising an open access advocacy event in Sofia, Bulgaria. § On April 27-May 1, Teresa Hackett will attend the third meeting of the WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP/3) in Geneva, whose role is to oversee the implementation of the Development Agenda for WIPO. 3. eIFL Negotiations and Useful ResourcesExtension agreement with SAGE signedeIFL-SAGE extension agreement for another period of 3 years has just been finalised and we will duly inform consortia of eIFL countries about new discounts. SAGE journals cover a wide range of subjects areas in the Arts and Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences and Scientific, Technical and Medical fields. More information on SAGE content available through eIFL negotiations is at www.eifl.net.eIFL.net to sign agreement with Nature Publishing GroupTalks are at a very advanced stage for an agreement between eIFL.net and Nature Publishing Group (NPG) that will grant access to member countries to a rich collection of 79 electronic journals on the life, physical and applied sciences and clinical medicine, including its flagship publication Nature, for a period of 3 years (2009-2011). The agreement will include access to 70 journals and databases by Palgrave Macmillan, an NGP sister company mostly focused on the humanities, social sciences and business.Membership will be duly informed as soon as the agreement gets signed. Additional information on the publishers can be viewed at www.eifl.net. How is your consortium faring? Usage statistics for 2008 available on the webAs usual, we have been collecting per country usage statistics for the year 2008 in order to monitor how much usage the overall eIFL network makes of the many electronic resources negotiated by eIFL with academic publishers. These statistics are also a highly useful tool to find out the degree of participation within every national consortium and resulting trends. This is a service that adds value to the eIFL Negotiations program and helps to work out a program of targeted promotion.Statistics for usage of EBSCO, Britannica Online, Gale, Institute of Physics (IoP), Oxford Content Online, Oxford Journals and Sage are already available in the MEMBERS ONLY area of our website, under “Statistics” section. Usage data for the remaining publishers are being collected and their availability will be communicated to consortia members in the next few weeks. ARL Statement on effects of the global economic crisis on publishing and library susbcriptionsThe Association of Research Libraries (ARL), a nonprofit organization of 123 research libraries in Canada and the US, has released a statement on the current global economic crisis and its effect on publishing and library subscriptions. The ARL statement is aimed at scholarly publishers and vendors and reinforces some of the key points in a recent statement by the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC).The statement offers additional observations and recommendations from the perspectives of ARL member libraries, exposed to the crisis as much as smaller libraries. In fact, downturns in state support for public institutions along with substantial losses in endowment funds mean that many ARL member libraries are facing substantial reductions in both operating and materials budgets. Against this background, the statements calls for publishers and vendors to adopt flexible approaches to pricing and avoid reducing content or access as libraries seek to renegotiate expenditures. Small, not-for-profit publishers are of particular concern and ARL member libraries welcome conversations regarding new publishing models, like open access, that can reduce the cost and vulnerability of established publications of high value. The full statement is available on the ARL website at http://www.arl.org/news/pr/econ-crisis-19feb09.shtml. 4. Update on eIFL-IPeIFL-IP global conference 2009, IstanbulWe return to Istanbul for the second eIFL-IP global conference that will take place on March 26-28. The programme is designed around feedback from last year’s conference, as well as current topics, and the focus is on participation and knowledge-sharing with built-in Q&A time, Regional Roundtable Discussion Groups and eIFL-IP’s first unconference. Broad themes are Copyright and Access to Digital Content, Copyright and Digitisation, Libraries and Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCEs), International copyright policy - exceptions and limitations, National copyright law and advocacy.There is an impressive line-up of external speakers from the UK, Nigeria, the Netherlands, and the USA and from eIFL members from Tajikistan, Mongolia, Moldova, Lesotho, South Africa, Russia and Kyrgyzstan. The keynote presentation is from Becky Hogge, former Executive Director of the Open Rights Group, a UK-based grassroots civil liberties and consumer rights advocacy organisation, who will give a tour of copyright activism around the world, taking in recent developments in Canada and Brazil, as well as efforts in the UK and Europe. More details at www.eifl.net. Welcome new eIFL-IP librarian from BelarusWelcome to the new eIFL-IP representative, Oksana Voronetskaya, from the National Library of Belarus. Oksana is coordinator of a working group at the National Library on proposals to amend the Law on Copyright and Related Rights, among other copyright activities. Thanks to Elena Diesperova, the former eIFL-IP representative, who remains in contact.Please visit www.eifl.net. Copyright Watch: an online resourceElectronic Information for Libraries (eIFL.net) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are pleased to be the founding partners for "Copyright Watch: an online resource", a collaborative effort to build a central, publicly accessible, online collection of national copyright laws and related documents. There is no single resource that is current or comprehensive, and locating up-to-date laws can be time consuming. A single portal providing public access to an indexed repository of current and draft laws, as well as amendments, will be a valuable new tool for anyone engaged in copyright and information policy analysis. The work will focus initially on gathering, uploading and indexing the laws. The online space will be sustained by a network of global partners and contributors.For more information, please contact: Teresa Hackett at eIFL.net <teresa.hackett AT eifl.net> Danny O'Brien at EFF <danny AT eff.org> Useful resources: the public domain“The Public Domain. Enclosing the Commons of the Mind” by James Boyle, Yale University Press, 2008 “Our music, our culture, our science and our economic welfare all depend on a delicate balance between those ideas that are controlled and those that are free, between intellectual property and the public domain. In this book, James Boyle introduces readers to the idea of the public domain and describes how it is being tragically eroded by our current copyright, patent, and trademark laws. In a series of fascinating case studies, Boyle explains why gene sequences, basic business ideas and pairs of musical notes are now owned, why jazz might be illegal if it were invented today, why most of 20th century culture is legally unavailable to us, and why today’s policies would probably have smothered the World Wide Web at its inception.” "A brillant copyfighter's latest book, from a law prof who writes like a comedian", Cory Doctorow. To find out more or to download for free, go to www.thepublicdomain.org. New UNCTAD-ICTSD Policy Brief on the public domain The UNCTAD-ICTSD Project on IPRs and Sustainable Development has recently launched a new series of Policy Briefs with a particular focus on the identification of concrete proposals to advance the implementation of a number of important multilateral outcomes in recent years, such as the WIPO Development Agenda (DA) recommendations, adopted in September 2007. The first Policy Brief from this perspective, entitled “A2K and the WIPO Development Agenda: Time to List the "Public Domain" by Dr. Uma Suthersanen, School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London, relates to access to knowledge and the public domain with a view towards implementing the relevant WIPO DA recommendations in this area. Dr. Suthersanen argues that the WIPO DA is a valuable opportunity to place the notion of the "public domain" at the centre of the intellectual property debate. In this regard, she proposes the creation of an international register for "public domain matter" which countries, particularly developing countries and LDCs, should be able to rely on in order to boost their local innovation and creativity. ictsd.net. 5. Update on eIFL-OAOpen Access Week declared for 2009Popular global event extended over one week, October 19 – 23Washington, DC – March 5, 2009 – To accommodate widespread global interest in the movement toward Open Access to scholarly research results, October 19 – 23, 2009 will mark the first international Open Access Week. The now-annual event, expanded from one day to a full week, presents an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research, including access policies from all types of research funders, within the international higher education community and the general public. Open Access Week builds on the momentum generated by the 120 campuses in 27 countries that celebrated Open Access Day in 2008. Event organizers SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition), the Public Library of Science (PLoS), and Students for FreeCulture welcome key new contributors, who will help to enhance and expand the global reach of this popular event in 2009: eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries), OASIS (the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook); and the Open Access Directory (OAD). “eIFL.net works to make intellectual outputs of developing and transitional countries more visible and more easily accessible,” added Rima Kupryte, Director of eIFL.net. “We believe that Open Access contributes to improved education, teaching, and research, and accelerates innovations and economical developments in these countries. Open Access Week is a great opportunity to promote Open Access globally.” This year’s program will highlight educational resources on Open Access that local hosts can use to customize their own programs to suit local audiences and time zones. OASIS will serve as the centerpiece of the 2009 program, delivering resources for every constituency and every awareness level. The Open Access Directory will again provide an index of participants on five continents, as well as their growing clearinghouse for all OA resources. Through the collaborative functionality of the two initiatives, OA videos, briefing papers, podcasts, slideshows, posters and other informative tools will be drawn from all over the Web to be highlighted during Open Access Week. The organizers will also work with registrants to develop a variety of sample program tracks, such as “Administrators’ introduction to campus open-access policies and funds,” “OA 101,” and “Complying with the NIH public access policy” that take full advantage of available tools. Participants are invited to adapt these resources for local use, and to mark Open Access Week by hosting an event, distributing literature, blogging - or even just wearing an Open Access t-shirt. “There’s no more certain sign of the momentum behind Open Access to research than an annual, global celebration of this scale,” added Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC. “Occasions like this are the best possible way to attract attention from busy faculty members and administrators, and to demonstrate the widespread appeal of Open Access. It’s SPARC’s pleasure to be working with our partners to realize the event once again this year.” For more information about Open Access Week and to register, visit http://www.openaccessweek.org. To read the full text of the press-release please go to http://www.arl.org/sparc/media/09-0305.shtml. eIFL.net and Bioline International signed a Memorandum of Understanding to promote open accesseIFL.net and Bioline International have identified an opportunity for cooperation in order to advance the development of Open Access and in particular open access journals in developing and transitional countries. Joint activities will aim to encourage more publishers to make available their journals on an Open Access basis, and will attempt to encourage more libraries to use and to promote this valuable free source of peer-reviewed scientific information.Bioline International (www.bioline.org.br) is a not-for-profit initiative that aims to reduce the global scientific knowledge divide through the online distribution of peer-reviewed journals from developing countries. The platform now hosts over 70 journals from 16 countries. Bioline improves the visibility of research journals from the developing world through enhanced meta-data and document mark-up, indexing in major databases, and through the use of international standards that are compliant with other open access initiatives, thereby improving the usage and uptake of the publications. Over 4.2 million full texts were downloaded in 2008 and the number continues to rise. Open Access workshop in BulgariaBulgarian Information Consortium and eIFL.net are organising an Open Access workshop to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria, in April. With this event eIFL.net will start a series of advocacy workshops planed for 2009. More details will be provided in due course. We expect to open this workshop to other Balkan countries. Contact person: Radostina Todorova, New Bulgarian University Library, rtodorova AT nbu.bg.SURF: 2009 is Open Access yeareIFL.net welcomes the initiative of the Dutch Higher Education sector to declare 2009 to be ‘Open Access Year’. The aim is to boost Open Access to the results of scientific/scholarly and practice-based research.Efforts will be made throughout the year to formulate and implement an Open Access policy, develop and improve the knowledge infrastructure, establish a clear legal framework, and create awareness with all stakeholders. The parties involved are the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the Dutch Higher Education sector, and research institutions. SURF (collaborative organisation for academic universities, universities of applied sciences and research institutions aimed at breakthrough innovations in ICT) will act as the coordinator. SURF, incidentally, is eIFL’s legal home and a great supporter of eIFL activities. The Netherlands is one of the world leaders in achieving Open Access. The research universities and a large number of universities of applied sciences have created a knowledge infrastructure making possible permanent Open Access to publications. NARCIS, the national “gateway to Dutch scientific information”, provides access to the full text of almost 170,000 scientific and scholarly publications. The Knowledge Bank for Universities of Applied Sciences [HBO Kennisbank] gives access to the results of research by ‘lectors’ (directors of research groups and knowledge networks in Universities of Applied Science). Extensive information is also available about copyright in higher education, as well as a ‘copyright toolbox’ for authors and publishers. But there is still a lot to be done. For more information please read the press release at www.surffoundation.nl. 6. Update on eIFL- FOSSAwareness raising activitiesIn an effort to raise awareness and skill levels with common tools used by the FOSS support community, the eIFL-FOSS program set up an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel in February. The channel, #eifl, can be found on irc.freenode.net. Anyone wishing to practise using IRC is welcome to join the channel and chat with those systems librarians in the room with experience of IRC. A beginners' guide to IRC is now available on the eIFL-FOSS webspace, see www.eifl.netOn February 6, Randy Metcalfe took part in a workshop on FOSS ILSs organised by the Social Science Baha in Kathmandu, Nepal. Randy gave an overview of eIFL.net and the eIFL-FOSS program and the significance of FOSS for libraries. Other presenters included Dr Mohan Raj Pradhan of HealthNet Nepal and Dibyendra Hyoju of Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya. The event was chaired by eIFL-FOSS country coordinator Amar Gurung of Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya. Skills and Tools WorkshopsIn January a Call for Proposals was issued to eIFL-FOSS country coordinators inviting proposals for practical activities that would result in enhanced IT skills of staff in constituent institutions of eIFL.net consortium members, see www.eifl.net. The response prior to the February 28 deadline has been positive. An announcement of successful proposals will be made in the near future.Proposals not yet submitted due to time constraints or other factors will continue to be welcome and should be sent to the eIFL-FOSS Program Manager Randy Metcalfe in the first instance. Update on the eIFL-FOSS ILS ProjectAccount of pilot site visits The first set of ILS project site visits took place in February. Randy Metcalfe visited Nepal, Mali, and Malawi. He had extensive meetings with pilot leads at each site: Dibyendra Hyoju at Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya in Kathmandu, Nepal; Abdrahamane Anne at the Library of the Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry, University of Bamako in Bamako, Mali; and Irene Sachs at Mzuzu University Library in Mzuzu, Malawi. Site visits also included meetings with related university and library officials and national library consortium members, and, in some cases, a presentation on FOSS to library staff. Each pilot site is very different. The common thread is that there is clear evidence of dedicated exploration and testing of the FOSS ILS being piloted. The level of engagement with the FOSS software development project for the respective ILSs is increasing. And the practical and innovative use of these ILSs will tell a very positive story in the ensuing case studies. Site visits for the remaining pilots are currently being planned. Upcoming FOSS ILS conferences There are 3 significant FOSS ILS conferences in the near future. We hope to see an eIFL-FOSS presence at most of these: § KohaCon 2009 - April 16-17 in Plano, Texas, USA wiki.koha.org § Evergreen International Conference - May 20-22 in Athens, Georgia, USA solinet.net § Breaking the Barriers - May 18 in London, UK www.kenchadconsulting.com Update on the Southern African Greenstone Support Network ProjectA Call for Proposals “Strong Centres – Confident Libraries – Working Digital Collections” was sent out to the National Centres of the support network in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Lesotho early February. Responses are now coming in detailing the training, support and digital collection building plans the Centres have for 2009.The Support Network’s mailing list is seeing increased activity, see www.eifl.net. Members not only share Greenstone implementation problems and solutions but also screenshots of digital libraries under construction. Coming soon on the SAGSN web pages will be a new section providing such “Examples of Greenstone in use”. As ever, please visit the eIFL-FOSS space on the eIFL.net website for the latest news and information from the eIFL-FOSS program at www.eifl.net The eIFL team www.eifl.net 
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