Speakers discussed the academic and research libraries role in the open access movement; and presented

- history of the movement, open access benefits and open access projects in Ukraine (implementation of the national open access mandate, Open access to knowledge statement endorsed by more than 150 Ukrainian University librarians – more information is here, simple search metadata – harvesting 9 Ukrainian open repositories http://oai.org.ua/, and a case study from open institutional repository of the National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, etc.);

- open institutional repository in Ternopil State Ivan Pul’uj Technical University integrated into the research and education portal of the University and the fist open access institutional mandate in Ukraine;

- open repositories in Russia (Socionet and 21 open repositories in Russian Academy of Sciences, 6 institutional repositories in Russian Universities – Ural State University, Siberian Federal University, Udmurt State University, Tver State University, Belgorod State University, and Ural Technical University, and other open repositories - e.g. regional repository for educational materials Ural Education, etc.) and a case study of the first Russian open institutional repository in the Ural State University;

- open access to research information in Kazakhstan.

The seminar was concluded with the workshop How to start: Planning and setting up open intuitional repositories.

eIFL.net and the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology (GPNTB) organised the seminar at the Sixteenth International Conference Crimea 2009: Libraries and Information Resources in the Modern World of Science, Culture, Education, and Business, Sudak, Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Ukraine (more information about the conference here.