EIFL 2011 Highlights

Published: 
16 Jan 2012

We would like to share our highlights from 2011:

2011 was another busy and productive year at EIFL. To support capacity building, we organized or attended over 90 events, workshops and conferences during the year.

Partner countries continued to benefit from very large savings on commercial e-resources through the activities of the EIFL-Licensing programme, and six renewal and three new agreements were negotiated and signed. Learn more.

EIFL-OA programme was awarded the prestigious SPARC Europe award in recognition of its awareness raising, advocacy and capacity building activities over the last three years, and for its success in developing a large number of repositories and open access journals in EIFL partner countries. Learn more.

EIFL-IP programme saw the culmination of 5 years advocacy at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), when we presented a proposal for an international treaty for the benefit of libraries and archives at a landmark meeting in November 2011. Learn more.

The EIFL-FOSS programme introduced highly successful Themed Weeks, which included free, online workshops designed to raise awareness of free and open source software for libraries. The sessions were attended by over 380 people from 62 countries, and covered 13 FOSS library solutions. Learn more.

EIFL-PLIP’s first pilot projects clearly demonstrate that innovative public libraries can help jobseekers find work and farmers increase their yields; develop young people’s technology skills and improve their chances in life; support e-health services, and link marginalized people to vital sources of support and information.  Fourteen additional grants to public libraries to replicate these innovative services were awarded in November and now there are 26 funded services in 22 countries. Learn more.

We were delighted to welcome two new partner countries in 2011 - the Maldives and Uganda.  This makes a total of 62 partner and project countries. Learn more.  

 

Ms Emilija Banionyte, EIFL-OA Advisory Board member, received the award certificate and a bottle of champagne on behalf of EIFL OA Program manager Iryna Kuchma (Photo: Inge Angevaare)  EIFL delegation at WIPO SCCR/23  (from left to right) Barbara Szczepańska, Poznan Foundation of Scientific Libraries, Poland, Teresa Hackett, Program Manager EIFL-IP and Awa Cissé, Consortium des Bibliothèques de l’Enseignement Supérieur du Sénégal (COBESS) FOSS themed week, online workshop (screen shot) EIFL-PLIP grantee: Lubuto Library project (photo courtesy of Lubuto Library Project)

(left to right) OA SPARC Europe award; EIFL-IP at WIPO; EIFL-FOSS online workshop; EIFL-PLIP grantee Lubuto Library Project, Zambia