No. 37 - January-February 2009

 

 

Attached file: PDF version

 

 

1. eIFL-related News

News of today!

We have just received a letter from UNESCO Director General to inform that eIFL.net has been granted a status as "NGO in official relation with UNESCO". Our relationship is classified as "operational relations" with UNESCO. This means that we can ask to attend UNESCO plenary meetings of the Conference and meetings of its commissions as observers; we can be invited to participate in various collective consultations of NGO's organized by UNESCO in connection with the implementation of its programme; we can also be asked to assist UNESCO in the execution of certain tasks scheduled in UNESCO's programme if Director General considers that we are the most competent to do so.

For more information on NGO partnerships with UNESCO, go to portal.unesco.org

Upcoming 19th eIFL.net Board Meeting

The year opens with the first of the three Advisory Board meetings that eIFL.net will hold throughout 2009. On February 1-2 the five Advisory Board members, all librarians and information professionals from eIFL member countries, two external advisors and eIFL staff will gather in London to discuss the work agenda for the year and to give the final touch to its strategic planning for the next 5 years after having received input from member countries during the eIFL General Assembly 2008 in Bulgaria.

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awards a grant for Mongolia

We are very pleased to announce that the Mellon Foundation has awarded a grant to eIFL.net to assist in the development of a strategic plan for the National Library of Mongolia for its transition to a new building, a move that will go hand in hand with organizational change and the introduction of new services and technologies. The National Library is the largest in Mongolia with more than 3 million books and publications, and a magnificent collection of 1 million rare and valuable books and manuscripts. It is the methodological centre for professional training for all librarians in Mongolia, running training courses for more than 100 librarians from urban and rural areas per year. The National Library has been connected to the Internet since 2001 and is also a member of the recently founded Consortium of Mongolian Libraries that aims to expand access to electronic resources for academics and researchers, students and general public. Please read the press release: www.eifl.net/press-area

New eIFL.net Spotlight Story

“From Armenia to Mali: eIFL librarians contribute to international FOSS community” is the catching title of our current Success story under the eIFL.net Spotlight. A mix of country story and a topical case study, this Spotlight highlights the growing success of one of the projects run by eIFL FOSS, which is providing technical training and documentation support to a group of pilot libraries for their set up and migration to Koha and Evergreen, two popular FOSS Integrated Library Systems.

Building on a network of FOSS library champions in member countries and following an intensive training workshop in Armenia last June, a few libraries in Africa (Malawi, Mali and Zimbabwe), the Caucasus region (Armenia and Georgia), Palestine and Nepal are already accomplishing practical results. This Spotlight tells the reasons why eIFL.net is supporting FOSS ILS and shows that some eIFL.net countries are actively contributing to the development of a truly international FOSS community through localization, feature modification and adaptation of FOSS solutions that match specific needs of their libraries. You can read the full story at www.eifl.net/spotlight.

eIFL Article in Focus on International Library and Information Work

“eIFL.net: Past and Future. Its Mission and the Richness of its Network” gives an updated account of eIFL.net mission and shows progress of its 5 work programmes in cooperation with local library consortia in 47 member countries across Africa, Eastern, Central and Balkan Europe, former Soviet Union, the Middle East and South-East Asia. The article closes with a reflection on ongoing worldwide changes concerning access to knowledge through libraries that will be having an impact on eIFL.net and its member consortia.

This article appeared in the Vol. 39, No. 3 (2008), pp. 84-90 of Focus on International Library and Information Work, a publication by the International Library and Information Group (ILIG) of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). By courtesy of the publisher it is freely downloadable at EIFL media.

News about members’ library consortia

Lesotho
LELICO National Consortium keeps active in its advocacy, promotion and training activities. The celebrations for the 30th anniversary of the Lesotho Library Association on December 11-12, 2008 served as a suitable occasion for LELICO to reflect on challenges and prospects of the information society in Lesotho and to emphasize the need for commitment by the local community of librarians for a successful LELICO in promoting technologically-managed resources.

Likewise, on January 9, the National University Library, a LELICO member, participated in the hands-on session on usage of free e-resources on industry, economics, development and trade organised by the World Bank Development Information Center, of which it is the hosting institution. On behalf of LELICO, the National University Library took the opportunity to advise further on the role of the national consortium for enhanced access to knowledge online.

More details of both events can be read at www.eifl.net/lesotho.

Ukraine
On January 28, Tetyana Yaroshenko, Vice President of National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Library Director and eIFL-OA country coordinator, is organizing a conference on E-information for Science and Education in the frames of the Days of Science. She will present Open Access initiative and Oleksii Vasyliev of Association "Informatio - Consortium" and eIFL country coordinator in Ukraine will present eIFL.net.

More information is available in the eIFL OA calendar (eifl.net/eifl-oa).

Uzbekistan
Tashkent University of Information Technologies, National Library of Uzbekistan and KARMAT Ltd will be organising the seminar Technologies of Scientific, Educational and Technical Information Development and Use of Electronic Library Networks in Tashkent on March 17-21, 2009.

The event attempts to give a thorough introduction on new technologies for the creation of databases with scholarly information and on their usage by universities and libraries. It 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. The seminar will likewise have a strong training touch with a course to get skills on the management of e-resources and integrated library systems and will be followed by a study visit to Samarkand for invited guests and organisers only.

The seminar targets heads of academic and public libraries; librarians; students and professors of universities and colleges and welcomes other publishers’ proposals to participate in the event until February 2, 2009. Preliminary program, application form and other details are available at www.eifl.net/uzbekistan

2. eIFL.net Events in January-February 2009

On January 15, Teresa Hackett (eIFL-IP) and Frode Bakken from EBLIDA will meet in Dublin to discuss our joint strategy on copyright and European bi-lateral trade agreements.

On January 17, Monika Segbert will head for Mongolia to participate in the first strategic planning meeting within the framework of the Mellon Foundation-funded project for library development in the country.

On January 20, Rima Kupryte and Teresa Hackett will attend a meeting in Dublin of the Universitas 21 network of research systems and repositories in support of the UN Millenium Development Goals. Library experts from several countries will be there including Tanzania, Ireland and the UK.

On February 1-2, eIFL.net will hold its 19th Board meeting in London, UK. It will be the first meeting for three new Advisory Board members Diana Sayej from West Bank (Palestine), Kay Raseroka from Botswana and Sreten Ugricic from Serbia. You can view all current and previous Advisory Board members at www.eifl.net/contact

On February 3, the first eIFL Open Access Advisory Committee will meet in London.

In February Randy Metcalfe, eIFL-FOSS manager, will be visiting FOSS LIS pilot sites in Nepal, Armenia, Mali, Malawi and Georgia. More on pilots: www.eifl.net/eifl-foss

3. eIFL Negotiations and Useful Resources

Update on new and renewal agreements for the eIFL network

American Psychological Association (APA)
On December 1, 2008 APA and eIFL.net signed an agreement that will grant access for a period of 3 years at great discounts to PsycArticles, a database of full-text articles from 63 journals published by the American Psychological Association, the APA Educational Publishing Foundation, the Canadian Psychological Association, and Hogrefe Publishing Group. KOBSON, Serbia consortium, is the first one to make use of this agreement. Any other consortium interested in APA products can contact us.

JSTOR
On December 1, 2008 JSTOR and eIFL.net signed an agreement that will provide access to JSTOR Collections and Archives for a period of 5 years to the following countries:

Access will be for free for as long as economic conditions in the institutions and within each country dictate for: Botswana, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Access will remain for free for the following countries for an initial 2 year term (2009-2010): Cambodia, Kosovo, Kyrgysztan, Laos, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Syria, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Greatly discounted rates are provided for Azerbaijan and Georgia.

The offer gives access to a renowned collection of resources on Arts and Sciences, Life and Biological Sciences, Business, Health and General Sciences and Ireland Collection. More details about the offer and procedures for licensing will be available soon in our website.

Royal Society Publishing
On December 10, 2008 eIFL signed a 3 year agreement with Royal Society Publishing, the independent academy of science in the UK. eIFL members can avail of highly discounted prices to the 7 Royal Society journals covering the biological and physical sciences, as well as the history and philosophy of science. Under the agreement, access is also provided to all the back issues.

More information about the journals is available at publishing.royalsociety.org. If your library is interested in accessing this resource, please get in touch with your eIFL coordinator.

Gale International
On December 14, 2008 Gale International, a Cengage Learning Company, and eIFL.net signed agreement for another 3 years which guarantees access to its e-resources at highly discounted rates to eIFL member countries. Agreement includes access to Academic OneFile, Books and Authors, Educators Reference Complete, General OneFile (formerly Infotrac OneFile), Global Issues in Context, History Resource Center-Modern World and Literature Resource Center.

For additional information about Gale International see www.eifl.net/negotiations. If your library is interested in accessing this resource, please get in touch with your eIFL country coordinator.

Taylor & Francis Online Encyclopedias
On December 31, 2008 Taylor & Francis Group and eIFL.net signed a 3 year agreement for libraries in eIFL countries to access its Online Encyclopedias at greatly reduced prices. Taylor & Francis Group Online houses renowned web resources in the social sciences, humanities, science and professional fields and this offer allows access to its well respected Routledge, Europa, Dekker and Agropedia Encyclopedias.

The Routledge & Europa Encyclopedias contain web resources on Philosophy, Religion, Politics, International Relations, International Who’s Who and other reference material whereas Dekker and Agropedia Encyclopedias are mostly dedicated to science and technology and Agricultural studies, respectively.

Additional details about the content offered by these Encyclopedias can be viewed at online.taylorandfrancis.com. Documents related to the agreement and licenses will be soon available in the MEMBERS ONLY section of our website.

More content through Burgundy
Through the eIFL.net agreement with Burgundy Information Systems, member library consortia can access a rich collection of ebooks, ejournals, conference proceedings, bibliographic databases and other resources in the fields of Engineering, Technology, Computers and IT, Medicine, Healthcare, Humanities and Social Sciences at highly discounted rates.

In total, the deal offers to interested libraries in eIFL member countries the following collections: Alexander Street Press, Ebrary ebooks, Future Science Group, Institution of Civil Engineers, Keesings World News Archive, Morgan & Claypool Publishers, Reviews.com, RMIT Publishing and SPIE Digital Library. More on content please visit: www.eifl.net/negotiations

Wiley Subscription Services
eIFL.net facilitated continuation of access to Wiley and Blackwell collections to the members of Lithuanian Research Library Consortium (LMBA). We are finalising an agreement to include Latvia, Estonia and Serbia. Any other country interested, feel free to get in touch with us.

Useful resource to keep updated with scholarly literature

ticTOCs, Journal Table of Contents Service (www.tictocs.ac.uk), is a new scholarly journal tables of contents (TOCs) service. It's free and easy to use and provides access to the most recent tables of contents of over 11,000 scholarly journals from more than 400 publishers.

Using ticTOCs, you can find journals of interest by title, subject or publisher, view the latest TOC, link through to the full text of over 250,000 articles (where institutional or personal subscriptions, or Open Access, allow), and save selected journals to MyTOCs so that you can view future TOCs. ticTOCs also makes it easy to export selected TOC RSS feeds to popular feedreaders such as Google Reader and Bloglines, and in addition you can import article citations into RefWorks (where institutional or personal subscriptions allow).

ticTOCs has been funded under the JISC Users & Innovations programme (www.jisc.ac.uk) and has been developed by an international consortium consisting of the University of Liverpool Library (lead), Heriot-Watt University, CrossRef, ProQuest, Emerald, RefWorks, MIMAS, Cranfield University, Institute of Physics, SAGE Publishers, Inderscience Publishers, DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), Open J-Gate, and Intute.

4. Update on eIFL-IP

eIFL.net response to European Commission Green Paper Copyright in the Knowledge Economy

In July 2008, the European Commission issued a Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy. In a call for comments, it sought the views of all stakeholders on the legal and technological developments described in the Paper, which focused on how research, science and educational materials are disseminated to the public. In particular it examined digitisation, orphan works and exceptions for libraries and archives, people with disabilities and teaching and research. Several other European and international library organisations also responded. Introductory comments from eIFL.net included:

  • the EU copyright acquis impacts on eIFL members worldwide through the EU’s comprehensive external relations policy that includes copyright in trade and cooperation agreements with countries all over the world;
  • the value of libraries to the knowledge economy was recognised by the Commission in its Communication i2010 Digital Libraries (2005). As well as contributing to the cultural and social lives of European citizens, it reported on the substantial impact of libraries and archives on the economy at large;
  • in any discussion of exceptions in the digital environment, two other issues must be resolved: the relationship between copyright law and contract law and exceptions and technological protection measures (TPMs). eIFL.net encourages the Commission to address both issues, guided by examples from Member States;
  • following its incorporation into the 2001 Information Society Directive, several EU Member States have transposed the so-called “three-step” test into their national laws. The general reported view among European scholars, however, is that the test is not addressed at the citizens of Member States, but is rather a drafting tool for the legislator. eIFL.net suggested that a guideline from the Commission in this regard would be helpful.

Read the Commission Green Paper and the eIFL.net response (summary and full version) at www.eifl.net/eifl-ip.

"Copyright: Enabling Access or Creating Roadblocks for Libraries?" eIFL/IFLA/EBLIDA joint conference, November 2008

eIFL.net, IFLA and EBLIDA received a warm welcome when we organised our first joint conference in Moldova on November 13-14, 2008 at the Scientific Library of the Academy of Economic Studies in Chisinau. The conference was attended by more than 50 librarians and policymakers from Moldova and the region. Keynote speakers included Fred von Lohmann from the US digital civil liberties organisation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Kenneth Crews, University of Colombia and author of the WIPO study on library copyright exceptions and limitations (EIFL news) and Luis Villeroel from Chile who all gave lively presentations that generated ideas and discussion.

eIFL.net sponsored eIFL-IP librarians from Armenia and Serbia to attend and to present the results on their return home. Hasmik Galstyan from the American University of Armenia has been active with eIFL-IP for several years, and organised two post-conference events on exceptions and limitations, digitisation and other copyright issues faced by academic libraries today and a training session for library staff on copyright issues in the digital environment. Tatjana Brzulovic Stanisavljevic, University Library Belgrade in Serbia and newly appointed eIFL-IP coordinator, gave a presentation copyright and libraries in Serbia, jointly prepared with the previous eIFL-IP coordinator.

Silvia Ghinculov, President of the Consortium Direct Moldova, and Mariana Harjevschi, eIFL-IP local coordinator, did a great job with the whole Moldovan team on the local organisation.

The Programme is available at www.eblida.org and you can read the news story on the conference “Librarians Take the Copyright Battleground in Developing Countries” on Intellectual Property Watch, November 26, 2008 at www.ip-watch.org.

Welcome new eIFL-IP librarians from Cambodia and Malawi

Two new eIFL-IP librarians are joining us in 2009. Mr Wanna Net from the Hun Sen Library at the Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia will take over from Hin Heu, who will continue to be the eIFL country coordinator. Mr Kondwani Wella from the Kamuzu College of Nursing in Malawi will replace Foster Howse who is retiring. Kondwani has worked with us before and presented a case study at IFLA Durban on copyright collecting societies (available at: www.ifla.org). We wish Foster all the best in his retirement.

See eIFL IP librarians in member countries at www.eifl.net/eifl-ip.

5. Update on eIFL-OA

Open Access workshop in Ethiopia: How to improve accessibility, visibility and impact of your research outputs

On December 22, Addis Ababa University Libraries and eIFL.net organised the workshop “Open Access: How to improve accessibility, visibility and impact of your research outputs” for librarians and researchers from Addis Ababa and neighbouring towns.

Iryna Kuchma, eIFL OA program manager, explained how open repositories and open access journals improve scholarly communication, accessibility, visibility and impact of research outputs while the resource person Ina Smith, manager & eApplication specialist at the Department of Library Services, University of Pretoria, gave a case study about her institution Digital Research Repository Open Repository.

The workshop also discussed the national strategy on developing Open Access projects in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa University Libraries pilot project of Open ETD repository and plans to develop a national open ETD repository. Yohannes Mulugeta of Addis Ababa University Libraries is a member of the DSpace Global Outreach Committee.

More on the workshop and presentations, please go to: www.eifl.net/eifl-oa

Knowledge in the digital age: Open Access and Open repositories in Russia

On December 2-3, the Scientific Library of Ural State University after M.Gorky and eIFL.net organized the workshop “Knowledge in the digital age: Open Access and Open repositories” at the Ural State University, Russia. The event had William Nixon and Morag Greig, Senior Assistant Librarians of University of Glasgow (UK), as resource people and was an excellent opportunity to discuss current issues of management, population and marketing of Open Repositories and to learn more about ongoing OA initiatives by research institutions and universities in Russia. The event also included a roundtable on the national strategy for developing OA projects.

Sergey Parinov of Central Economic-Mathematical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, presented OA projects by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the national harvester and shared open repository Socionet (socionet.ru), which houses research output from 114 institutions and departments of Russian Academy of Sciences. He also presented the first Russian Open Access mandate by his institution.

Elena Okhesina of the Scientific Library of Ural State University and eIFL-OA country coordinator presented the Institutional Repository of her university (elar.usu.ru), the first institutional repository put in place in the country, while his colleague Evgeniy Negulyaev shared his experience of integrating data about Open Access Journals in the electronic catalogue of the Scientific Library of Ural State University.

Of interest also were the presentations by Vladimir Minyaylov of the Department of Chemistry, Moscow State University after M.Lomonosov about the Open educational resource «ChemNet» ( www.chem.msu.su) and by Syb Groeneveld about Creative Commons Russia and open content licenses.

The full account of the event can be read at www.eifl.net/eifl-oa and you can see all presentations (in English and Russian) at lib.usu.ru

eIFL.net and ETD 2009 Joint Call for Papers: Promoting Open Access in Developing and Transitional Regions. Best practices in populating and promoting Open Access ETDs in developing and transitional countries

On behalf of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), the University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia University, we would like to invite you to submit a paper, poster or presentation for "ETD 2009: Bridging the knowledge divide" - the 12th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations to be held on June 10-13 at the University of Pittsburgh (USA).

ETD 2009 will focus on ETDs, Institutional repositories and Open Access - Integrative E-Learning Processes in Higher Education. The ETD 2009 conference also includes a joint call for participation in a Developing Nations Colloquium co-sponsored by eIFL.net.

Completed, final versions of abstracts for papers are due by Monday, February 16 and notification of paper/poster acceptances will be announced to authors on March 16. Final versions of research papers for conference proceedings must be deposited in the ETD2009 paper repository by May 11. Print poster presenters must also deposit a PDF version of the final poster or e-presentation by May 11 or bring the poster with them to the conference. Electronic poster presenters may submit a multimedia version of their "poster", approximately two minutes in length, with narrative.

Please visit ETD 2009 Main Conference site for additional details at www.library.pitt.edu

6. Update on eIFL-FOSS

Awareness raising activities

In December, Randy Metcalfe gave an FOSS ILS overview presentation at a NELINET workshop on the role of FOSS ILS in an academic library. One of the points that Randy was exploring with the participants was the level of engagement with a FOSS development and support community that can be expected of an institution deploying FOSS. He elaborated further on this in his blog post concerning what he has termed “the square of engagement” (see www.eifl.net/eifl-foss). The key insight there is that evaluating your level of engagement is a way of articulating your commitment rather than merely quantifying how much time or effort is spent with the software. Translation: your institution can engage with key FOSS for libraries even if you are not participating as developers of the software.

The recent eIFL.net General Assembly sparked a number of good ideas for the eIFL-FOSS programme. One of these was to collect information on various free and open source software projects of special interest to libraries and present this in a handy format. That process has started with a new section on the eIFL-FOSS area of the website entitled “FOSS for Libraries”. We will be adding more projects on a weekly basis until this becomes a comprehensive resource (see www.eifl.net/eifl-foss).

Skills and Tools Workshops

In January the eIFL-FOSS programme will launch a Call for Participation from eIFL-FOSS country coordinators to submit proposals for activities that will enhance the skills and knowledge of IT tools amongst those serving as systems librarians across their consortium. Coordinators are asked to identify practical steps that can be taken both within individual libraries and collectively by the libraries in their consortium. They are also requested to identify specific actions that the eIFL-FOSS program can undertake to assist them in their efforts. Some funding is available for these efforts. Country coordinators are encouraged to contact the eIFL-FOSS Program Manager in the first instance for an informal discussion of proposal plans. Deadline for proposal submission is February 28, 2009.

Update on the eIFL-FOSS ILS Project

Site visits for each of the ILS pilots are currently being organised in order to facilitate the drafting of case studies detailing how each site managed their investigation and evaluation of the FOSS ILS with which they were dealing. The case studies are a vital tool for the learning process for the project. Not every pilot site will lead to a timely ILS migration. In some cases the challenges may have turned out to be insurmountable. Site visits will take place through the month of February with the case studies being written up for publication in March.

Update on the Southern African Greenstone Support Network Project

In November 2008, Amos Kujenga of Zimbabwe's National University of Science and Technology (NUST) joined the eIFL-FOSS team as part-time Regional Coordinator of the Southern African Greenstone Support Network. Amos is no stranger to Greenstone or to the national centers in the network. He was a key participant in the pilot project of 2008 and regularly provides technical support and training for those exploring Greenstone for the first time. Amos will be working closely with the project’s Steering Committee, whose core members are representatives appointed from the network’s National Centers. Further details will be on the web soon.

National Centers in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Lesotho are currently being invited to answer a call for proposals to detail their advocacy, training, support and digital collection building plans for the year ahead. And in the near future, a Call for Participation should extend the Network to more National Centers in additional countries.

As ever, please visit the eIFL-FOSS space on the eIFL.net website for the latest news and information from the eIFL-FOSS programme at www.eifl.net/eifl-foss.

The eIFL Team

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