Electronic Information for Libraries
eIFL.net
Dr Busiso Chisala, Technical Advisor to MALICO VSAT on the roof of Chancellor College Library, University of Malawi
eIFL.net Newsletter

No. 23 - September/October 2006

1. eIFL-related News

6th eIFL General Assembly around the corner

We look forward to seeing you all in couple of days in Amman. This year this major eIFL event will be kindly hosted by the University of Jordan in Amman on 10-12 September.

This event has prompted much expectation as it will be an intense learning experience rich in workshops, lectures, roundtables and topical/regional sessions. It will be attended by all eIFL country coordinators, eIFL staff and Board members, vendors and a host of invited high level speakers including Alma Swan from Key Perspectives, Victoria Reich from LOCKKS Program, Anurag Acharya from Google Scholar, Paul Peters from Hindawi Publishing, amongst others. The General Assembly will be preceded by the 12th Advisory Board meeting and a newcomers’ session for eIFL country coordinators who are attending the GA for the first time.

We are very grateful to the generous sponsorship of the University of Jordan; the National Center for Human Resources Development in Jordan; the Jordanian Center of Excellence for Public University Libraries Services; Open Society Institute; EBSCO Publishing; Elsevier; Institute of Physics Publishing; Wiley InterScience Journals; Oxford University Press; American Chemical Society; Cambridge University Press, and SAGE Publications.

You can see the full program in eIFL Annual General Assembly.

eIFL OSS for Libraries Kick Off meeting

The Advisory Board held in Rome at the end of June has given a definitive boost to the works around the design and launch of the new eIFL program area Open Source Software for Libraries. This area will aim to advocate for OSS for libraries and build local capacity in eIFL member countries’ libraries. The kick off meeting of this exciting new work area will take place in Cupramontana, Italy, at the end of October and is planned to bring together experts of OSS for libraries at the international and eIFL countries level. Further news soon.

The National University of Lesotho awarded as the 1000th SFX library

To celebrate this milestone, Ex Libris will award the Thomas Mofolo Library at the University of Lesotho with SFX Link resolver fully hosted, on the occasion of the International Group of Ex Libris Users (IGeLU) meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, on September 4-7. The University of Lesotho is a leading partner of the national consortium LELICO and eIFL.net supported its nomination due to its constant efforts to benefit from the latest technological developments in information literacy. Thanks to the gift of this SFX link resolver, the library will be able to interconnect its electronic resources and serve users more efficiently. Read more at: www.exlibrisgroup.com.

eIFL makes its debut in the world’s largest encyclopedia

Described as “history’s biggest experiment in collaborative knowledge” Wikipedia, the Web-based free content encyclopedia has 229 languages and more than one million articles in the English language version. Wikipedia ranks in the top 20 of most visited sites on the web. Wikipedia-founder Jimmy Wales, who spoke at the 2005 eIFL General Assembly in Vilnius, was named in May 2006 as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people.

But we knew something was missing – where was the entry for eIFL?! This has now been fixed and there is an article on the history, guiding principles, membership and program areas for eIFL. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, so feel free to improve the eIFL article (just read the guidelines on style and content). Alternatively, create a new article for your own library consortia and link it to eIFL. Or why not translate the eIFL article for your own language section of Wikipedia? Being in Wikipedia is one of the most effective ways of telling the world about the work of eIFL and the consortia.

Wikipedia is a “wiki” i.e. a website that allows any visitor to edit its content (Wiki-wiki" means "hurry quick" in Hawaiian). There will be a training session at the 2006 eIFL General Assembly in Jordan on how to use wikis, amongst other community building tools. In the meantime, we will be glad to help if you have any questions about using or editing Wikipedia.

See also Resources: pediapress.com, eIFL Wikipedia article, How to edit a page in Wikipedia.

2. Upcoming eIFL Events in September-October 2006:

On August 30-September 1, Monika Segbert paid a visit to the local consortium in Kosovo to discuss their future development.

Jennifer de Beer will represent eIFL.net at the "Bridging the North-South Divide in Scholarly Communication on Africa" conference at the African Studies Centre (ASC) to take place in Leiden, the Netherlands, on September 6-8. The Conference is part of the CODESRIA-ASC Conference Series 2006 and Jennifer will present the paper “Open Access in developing and transition countries: eIFL and a view from South Africa”, you can see the full program at www.ascleiden.nl.

Teresa Hackett and eIFL board member Jean-Claude Guèdon are panelists at the seminar “New tools for the Dissemination of Knowledge and the Promotion of Innovation and Creativity: global developments and regional challenges” to be held at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, in Alexandria, Egypt, on September 7-8. The event will feature top names from the world of open knowledge. You can see the program at www.bibalex.org.

On September 9th the 12th eIFL Advisory Board meeting will be held in Amman, Jordan, prior to the eIFL General Assembly. The meeting will be attended by eIFL staff and Board members who will discuss the launch of the eIFL OSS program and eCommunity tools, progress on fundraising and PR strategies and update on the General Assembly. Anurag Acharya from Google Scholar will be invited to join the meeting

On September 9th the newcomers’ session will take place as a preparatory session to the eIFL General Assembly. eIFL country coordinators that are attending the GA for the first time are welcome to this meeting which aims to be a general introduction to eIFL work.

On September 10-12th the 6th General Assembly will be hosted by the University of Jordan. This major event will bring together around 90 people including eIFL country coordinators, eIFL staff, invited speakers and vendors. You can see the GA program at our website at eIFL.net.

On September 14, Paola Gargiulo will represent eIFL.net and will speak about Open Access at the "Digital Age of Culture" Conference to be held in Kamchatka, Russia. The program is available at eIFL.net/openaccess.

On September 21, Melissa Hagemann will participate at the Open Access workshop that will be co-sponsored by eIFL.net and the Foundation of Scientific Libraires in Poznan. Details of the workshop are available at www.pfsl.poznan.pl.

Emilija Banionyte will be speaking about Lithuanian Research Library Consortium as well as eIFL at the Electronic Resource Management Conference 2006 at the Academy of Economic Studies in Chisinau, Moldova, on September 25. The event is a joint collaboration of the Library Consortium eIFL Direct Moldova, the Academy of Economic Studies, the American Council in Moldova and the Library Association of Moldova. Emilija will take the opportunity to meet with the local library consortium while in Moldova.

The Annual General Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO is taking place in Geneva from September 25 to October 3. Teresa Hackett will attend for items of interest to eIFL (the Development Agenda and the draft broadcast treaty). Both issues are unresolved from last year, so this meeting promises to be full of heated debate and corridor lobbying.

Teresa Hackett, already in Geneva for WIPO, will attend the WTO public forum "What WTO for the XXIst Century?" on September 25-26. This forum is aimed to be a space for civil society to share ideas with the WTO on WTO work and processes.

Sania Battalova and Ausra Vaskeviciene, both eIFL coordinators, will be participating at the 7th Conference Issyk Kul 2006: Libraries and Democratization of Society to take place in Issik Kul, Kyrgysztan, on October 1-5. Sania has been one of the organisers of this event and Ausra will deliver a presentation on eIFL and management of e-resources. You can see the program at eIFL.net.

Rima Kupryte has been invited to attend the INFORMATIO 2006 International Conference on Electronic Information Resources Design, Use and Access in Alushta, Ukraine, on October 3-7. Details can be viewed at eIFL.net/events.

A group of eIFLers including Susan Veldsman, Rima Kupryte, Jan Andrzej Nikisch, Emilija Banionyte, Irina Razumova and Ausra Vaskeviciene have registered for the eICOLC Fall Meeting in Rome, Italy, on October 11-15. If more of you are coming, we would be pleased to go for a pizza close to eIFl's office. Further information at www.aepic.it.

Melissa Hagemann, Susan Veldsman and 10 OA champions from eIFL countries including Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Estonia, Ghana, Lithuania, Mongolia, Poland, and Ukraine will participate in the OA Repositories Workshop at the University of Glasgow on October 18-20. You can see the program at www.lib.gla.ac.uk.

Tigran Zargaryan will speak on eIFL's behalf at the Fourth International Conference Central Asia 2006: Internet and Library Information Resources in Science, Education, Culture and Business in Urgench and Khiva in Uzbekistan on October 18-22. Please read the program at eIFL.net.

Teresa Hackett will give the presentation “Pitfalls and promises: copyright in the digital age” at The Digital Future of Cultural and Scientific Heritage TEL-ME-MOR Policy Conference in Tallinn, Estonia on October 19-20.

On October 23, Prof Zhang, eIFL coordinator for China, will chair the session about Scientific Data Sharing and Application in China at the CODATA Conference in Beijing, China. See the program at www.codataweb.org.

The eIFL OSS for Libraries kick off meeting will be held in Cupramontana, Italy on October 29-30. Monika Segbert, Rima Kupryte, Tigran Zargaryan, Art Rhyno, Janet Haven and a group of international and eIFL countries OSS experts will keep up a lively discussion.

3. Update on new Content

Susan Veldsman to join the eIFL team

From September 1st, Susan Veldsman, country coordinator for South Africa, has joined the eIFL team and she will be spending part of her time in dealing with day to day work with publishers and related negotiations. Rima Kupryte and she will be going to the upcoming London Information Online to start talks for new e-resources. Susan, welcome on board!

4. Update on eIFL-IP and Useful Resources

eIFL Copyright Knowledge gets a boost

Three members of the eIFL-IP network, sponsored by the Open Society Institute (OSI), attended an intensive course in international copyright law at the Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam. From 10-15 July 2006, Dick Kawooya eIFL-IP Uganda, Ján Kováčik eIFL-IP Slovakia and Teresa Hackett, eIFL-IP Project Manager attended ten seminars on the most crucial, current copyright issues presented by internationally renowned scholars and practitioners in the field of international copyright law. Topics included exceptions and limitations, database protection, collective administration of rights, liability, jurisdiction and enforcement, copyright and competition law and copyright and developing nations.

Professor P. Bernt Hugenholtz, co-director of the Institute for Information Law, welcomed the contribution of librarians to the wider societal interests of copyright and in particular, valued the perspective of libraries in transition and developing countries.

Read the press release at eIFL.net/news.

Call for information on library services to blind and visually impaired users.

  • Do you provide library services to blind or visually impaired users?
  • What type of resources do you have for blind and visually impaired users?
  • How do blind and visually impaired users get material in formats that they can use e.g. Braille or voice-activated text.

eIFL has been asked to contribute to an important study on the barriers to accessible material for blind and visually impaired users caused by national and international copyright law. The study, commissioned by the influential WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights will examine copyright exceptions for blind and visually impaired people in national legislation, identify copyright problems with the production and dissemination of materials in Braille and other accessible formats and will present case studies from developed, developing countries and transition countries.

It is very worthwhile to help because it could influence international copyright policy and will raise awareness of the needs of libraries providing services to blind and visually impaired users amongst the officials who draft national copyright laws. The author of the study is grateful to the eIFL members who have responded – thank you! The study is being finalised, but there is still time to share your experience. You don’t need to know much about copyright, just tell us how you serve blind and visually impaired users. We need to hear from more eIFL countries, so that the study reflects more than the interests of “the West”!

For more information, see eIFL.net/services or contact eIFL.

Pediapress - individual books based on Wikipedia articles

From algebra to health sciences, technology and digital media to the history of philosophy, this new service enables you to compile your own books from over a million Wikipedia articles at low cost (they do not charge for the content, but for the service). Customers can preview and order books in a couple of clicks and a unique, bound book is printed and shipped within two days. Please visit pediapress.com.

One stop shop for WTO TRIPS agreement information

TRIPSagreement.net is dedicated to information on the WTO TRIPS agreement. There are four categories: the text of the TRIPS agreement, GATT negotiation documents, WTO panel decisions and documents from the Doha Round of negotiations. The site also contains a bibliography of articles and books on the TRIPS agreement.

The editor of the site, Daniel J. Gervais, Associate Professor of law at the University of Ottowa, was actively involved in the TRIPS Agreement negotiations and has written substantially on the subject. You can surf the site at www.tripsagreement.net.

5. Open Access News and Useful Resources

eIFL/OSISA Open Access Workshop, 21-22 August, Pretoria

eIFL partnered with OSISA (the Soros Foundation covering nine countries in southern Africa) to organize an Open Access workshop for nine Southern African countries on 21-22 August in Pretoria, South Africa. The event was attended by 42 participants from Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. OSISA contributed $18,000 to support the participants’ travel. Among the universities which already have operational repositories are the University of Zimbabwe, the University of Namibia, and the University of Pretoria. Others, such as the Open University of Zimbabwe, are planning to launch repositories in the coming months. Of particular significance during the workshop the National Research Foundation of South Africa confirmed that their grant recipients could use part of their funding to cover publishing costs in peer-reviewed open access journals. The participants themselves decided that they will develop lists of the copyright policies of publishers in their countries, similar to the SHERPA Romeo list, so as to encourage submissions from authors from their countries in institutional repositories. Read press release at: eIFLnet/news.

PLoS One

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) has announced PLoS ONE (www.plosone.org) , its newest open access (OA) innovation in scientific publishing which will launch in November of this year with submissions accepted from August. PLoS ONE aims at inclusively by enabling the peer-review process to accept all papers which demonstrate 'rigorously performed science' and by extending the peer-review process post-publication through encouraging readers to add comments, annotations and ratings to each article. PLoS ONE seeks to bring together research from all areas of biology and medicine reflecting an increasing multidisciplinary approach in research and in so doing "return control over scholarly publishing to the research community".

US Provosts’ Open Letter in Support of OA

With encouragement from SPARC, provosts from 54 top American universities have expressed their support of the Federal Public Research Access Act which calls for Open Access. As the provosts write “we believe that this legislation represents a watershed and provides an opportunity for the entire U.S. higher education and research community to draw upon their traditional partnerships and collaboratively realize the unquestionably good intentions of the Bill’s framers – broadening access to publicly funded research in order to accelerate the advancement of knowledge and maximize the related public good.”

From the start of the OA movement, we have been trying to generate such an endorsement from the provosts, so it is very encouraging (and a huge accomplishment for SPARC) to finally receive this type of high level support.

The eIFL Team
Member Countries
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