The difference eIFL makes

eIFL.net is small but supported by the strength of its member consortia it has a significant and increasing impact in member countries and in the wider world. As a result, all over the world millions of scholars and researchers, doctors and lawyers, students and teachers now have access to close to 33,300 most up-to-date and highest quality electronic e-journals. Internationally eIFL.net is raising the profile of developing and transition countries and the issues relevant to their access to knowledge.

eIFL.net has built a growing membership base of library consortia from 48 countries including Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Africa, South East Asia, and the Middle East by supporting sustainable consortia especially in countries most in need of support due to their dire economic circumstances. eIFL.net energises this globally dispersed community and partners with them to achieve a range of program related goals. The member consortia now serve about 4,400 institutions.

This network has joint purchasing and advocacy capacity many times stronger than that of each individual institution. Each consortium or alliance enables its members to provide more services, more effectively and economically. For example, to support improved education, teaching and research eIFL.net negotiates with publishers to get fair and affordable terms for access to electronic resources. eIFL.net members save an estimated $135 million every year through eIFL licenses. In the five years from 2002 to 2006, the number of full-text articles downloaded by students and other users increased by 142% to more than 2.6 million a year. Many member consortia have individual success stories www.eifl.net.

To meet the needs of the member consortia, eIFL.net has added three major related issues to its portfolio:

• Making the intellectual output of the member countries more visible and more easily accessible locally and globally by supporting open access repositories and journals. There are now some 100 institutional repositories from eIFL countries, and the number is growing fast.
• Advocacy for Access to Knowledge: copyright and libraries. Raising awareness amongst librarians of intellectual property [IP] issues in the countries and internationally. eIFL is voicing the concerns of its membership in international fora such as WIPO and the EU consultations.
• Supporting the development and appropriate use of free and open access software for libraries is the latest eIFL program area, with ambitious plans to deploy FOSS solutions instead of expensive proprietary ones.

These are all big issues which will not quickly be solved. Whilst it is too early for eIFL.net to talk of major impact already achieved in these fields, it can point to ambitious plans and first results which include putting eIFL library interests at the heart of the global access to knowledge movement and Influencing policy at national and international levels. By providing training and advice, eIFL.net has created a network of library copyright specialists to help build capacity amongst the eIFL.net library community and to advocate for national and international copyright law reform.

In the fields of open access and free and open source software eIFL.net is building the skills and confidence in its network to explore the possibilities, increase awareness and increase take-up of suitable products and participation in promising initiatives.

Overall the eIFL network is providing some 500 training events throughout the year, and through its rich website and numerous dedicated mailing lists facilitates vibrant knowledge and experience sharing from one end of the globe to the other.

The overall vision of eIFL.net is that librarians in member consortia will become activists for fair and balanced copyright laws, open access to knowledge and open source solutions, thus leaders in promoting access to knowledge in the digital age.