No. 49 - January-February 2011

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	Happy New Year from EIFL staff EIFL General Assembly dates A baseline study on the perceptions of public libraries in Africa Congratulations to EIFL Advisory Board member Spotlight: OpenAIRE is good for global research


	EIFL events January-February


	EIFL-Licensing focus 2011 Renewals Update on new agreements


	EIFL-OA focus for 2011 Call for proposals to support OA advocacy to research communities Open Access Week 2011 dates announced


	EIFL-IP focus for 2011 “Unprecedented opportunity for libraries and archives” - WIPO to work on library and archive copyright exceptions Welcome to new EIFL-IP librarian from Cameroon


	EIFL-FOSS focus for 2011 Disability Tools in Zimbabwe – a new project for 2011


	EIFL-PLIP focus for 2011 PLIP projects forge ahead


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Happy New Year from EIFL staff

EIFL staff wish all of you and your families a very happy and prosperous New Year. We are very excited about our many activities planned for 2011; you can find out more below.

EIFL 2011 General Assembly dates

The dates for the EIFL 2011 GA have been selected: 26 June 2011 - 28 June 2011. As announced in a previous newsletter, the National Library of Belarus (see photograph) will be hosting this year’s GA.

Please visit our GA 2011 page to stay informed about the activities.

A baseline study on the perceptions of public libraries in Africa

EIFL-PLIP, the Public Library Innovation Programme, is working with a team of researchers to survey perceptions of public libraries in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. This new and exciting undertaking will capture the perceptions of different stakeholders, such as policy makers and funders, the media, users and non-users, and last but not least the librarians themselves, about the role and potential of public libraries in their communities. Through this study we aim to understand how libraries are viewed at different levels of society, and how stakeholders could best be positively influenced to create, fund, support or use public libraries.

The findings of the study are expected in spring 2011, and will be made broadly available to the library profession in Africa and beyond.

The Public Library Innovation Programme (PLIP) is supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Congratulations to EIFL Advisory Board member

EIFL board member Gintarė Tautkevičienė received an honorary award for her achievements in scientific research and activities in the fields of library science, bibliography and book science.
The award is given by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania and is awarded annually. Achievements of the last 5 years are evaluated for this award. Gintare was nominated for her outstanding activities working with the Lithuanian Research Library Consortium.

Photograph details: it was taken at the award ceremony at the Ministry of Culture on 29 December 2010. From the left: Rima Kuprytė, EIFL Managing Director; Gintarė Tautkevičienė, EIFL Advisory Board member, Kaunas University of Technology Library Head of Information services Department; Genė Duobinienė, Kaunas University of Technology Library Director.

Spotlight: OpenAIRE is good for global research

In 2007, the European Union spent €228 billion ($301 billion) or 1.85% of GDP on research and development. “Europe 2020” - the European Union’s strategy for smart and sustainable growth in the coming decade – has an even bigger spending target of 3% of GDP by 2020, thus ensuring that Europe remains a world leader in investment in innovation.

Now imagine if the results - data and publications - were freely available to scientists, researchers and citizens everywhere to turn innovative ideas into products and services that create growth and jobs, improve lives and help to build a better society. The first steps have already been taken, and OpenAIRE is making it happen. Read more about OpenAIRE and EIFL’s role as a partner in this exciting project.

EIFL events January-February

15-17 Jan	EIFL annual staff retreat, Italy. EIFL staff will meet to discuss and plan for 2011 programmes and projects.
24-25 Jan	Digital libraries and archives for North Africa, Washington, DC. The meeting is organized by the Fulbright Academy. Rima Kupryte, EIFL Managing Director, will be participating. Learn more.
5-26 Jan	Open Edge event at the National e-Science Centre e-Science Institute, Edinburgh, UK. Simon Ball, EIFL-FOSS programme manager will be attending. The Open Edge event focuses on the use of Open Source solutions in libraries, and one of the keynote speakers, Ross Gardler of JISC OSSwatch, is a member of the EIFL FOSS Advisory Group.Learn more.
17-18 Feb	EIFL Advisory Board bi-annual meeting, Rome, Italy.
26-27 Feb	EIFL-IP Advisory Committee will meet to discuss strategy, tactics and programme plans for 2011.

EIFL-Licensing focus for 2011

Renewing existing agreement

We will start work in January 2011 on the renewal of the following agreements that end during 2011 with the aim of having pricing in place in time for the General Assembly in June 2011.

Burgundy Information Services
New England Journal of Medicine
Royal Society
SAGE
Taylor & Francis Databases

Negotiating agreements for new resources

We are in discussion with a number of new and existing vendors about licensing additional journal and e-book collections. We will aim to have a range of new agreements in place by the General Assembly in June 2011.

Promoting awareness and usage

During the course of 2011, we will

continue our programme of campaigns to promote awareness of agreements in eligible countries, and will also work with EIFL Country and Licensing Coordinators to increase access and usage in member institutions;
develop tools and materials to support EIFL Country and Licensing Coordinators in areas such as advocacy and usage of e-resources;
contact vendors in January/February 2011 to collect 2010 usage statistics for all licensed resources. We anticipate that consolidated statistics will be available to EIFL Country and Licensing Coordinators by April 2011. We will also collect standard pricing information so that we are able to calculate the savings achieved through the EIFL-Licensing programme in 2010.

Renewals

Project MUSE

We have signed a 3-year renewal agreement for Project MUSE from 1 January 2011 – 31 December 2013. Project MUSE provides full-text access to almost 500 journals from over 130 non-profit publishers in the humanities and social sciences.

• Find out more about the EIFL agreement for Project MUSE

Other renewals

We anticipate that renewal negotiations with Oxford Journals and Institute of Physics Publishing will be finalised in early January 2011.

Update on new agreements

We are finalising new agreements for Wiley-Blackwell Journals and Oxford Handbooks Online. We hope that both agreements will be available in early January 2011.

EIFL-OA focus for 2011

In 2011 the main EIFL-OA focus will be on strengthening advocacy for open access, at the national and international level, by engaging in constructive and creative ways with research and student communities.

Our activities will include: consulting and coordinating open access policies in the EIFL network; providing small grants (up to 4,000 USD) to support open access advocacy campaigns (see below); encouraging student engagement in the open access movement (in partnership with SPARC Right to Research coalition); and implementing the OpenAIRE project (see the Spotlight above).

We will also continue to build capacities, and encourage and expand knowledge sharing throughout our network of EIFL-OA country coordinators, and beyond, with other communities of OA project partners and experts.

Call for proposals to support OA advocacy to research communities

The EIFL Open Access programme invites individual libraries and organisations, partnerships, or groups of libraries and organisations under the consortium umbrella, to submit proposals. The proposals should be for organising national or institutional open access advocacy campaigns to reach out to research communities. Of particular interest are scholarly and scientific researchers, universities and colleges, and university presses and society publishers.

Who is eligible?

Libraries and organisations from EIFL partner countries are eligible to participate.

Application procedure

Recommended application form and more details about this call will be available on our website later this month (January). The deadline for applications is February 28th, 2011.

Open Access Week 2011 date announced

Open Access Week 2011 will take place all over the world October 24 - 30.

In the future, Open Access Week will be the last *full* week of October:

2012: Oct 22 - 28
2013: Oct 21 - 27
2014: Oct 20 - 26
2015: Oct 19 – 25

EIFL-IP focus for 2011

Our international advocacy work will focus on achieving a successful outcome during negotiations at WIPO on exceptions and limitations for libraries (see below), as well as liaison with WIPO Member States. We will work with the EIFL community to raise awareness and mobilise support at the national level.

At the same time, we will continue to provide support at the national level on a variety of issues; e.g., amendments to national copyright laws, queries and advice on any copyright-related issues.

In terms of training, we will continue working for the take-up of “Copyright for Librarians” in library school curricula, and will pay particular attention to its adoption by an accrediting institution as a stand-alone module. Following the EIFL-IP advanced training in copyright, advocacy and presentation skills in October 2010, we will encourage participants to play a role in providing support and backup in the regions.

“Unprecedented opportunity for libraries and archives” - WIPO to work on library and archive copyright exceptions

The WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) is the main body that shapes international copyright law. At its twenty-first session in November 2010, agreement was reached on the meeting conclusions at close to midnight on the last day that offered an unprecedented opportunity for libraries and archives. The conclusions include the topic copyright limitations and exceptions (L&E), of prime interest for libraries and archives.

For L&Es, there is a concrete work plan and a timetable. First and foremost, all the issues concerning people with disabilities, libraries and archives, and education and research will be discussed by WIPO Member States, with equal time allocated for “text-based work on appropriate exceptions and limitations”. The proposal for a Treaty for Improved Access for Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading Disabled Persons, strongly supported by libraries, will move forward next in June 2011.

Issues for libraries and archives are timetabled for three full days’ discussion and formal consideration by Member States in November 2011, followed by education and research in May 2012. In summary, the schedule for libraries and archives is:

a focus on L&E for libraries and archives at SCCR/23 in November 2011, with three additional working days dedicated to L&E for libraries and archives;
recommendations to the WIPO General Assembly (GA) on L&E for libraries and archives at SCCR/24 in May/June 2012 and
a decision on any SCCR recommendation at the WIPO GA in September 2012.

This is the first time that libraries and archive issues have achieved such focus at WIPO. It is a great opportunity, but it also requires a huge amount of work and significant support from the library and archive communities to ensure a successful outcome. We will be calling for your support in 2011!

EIFL was represented at SCCR/21 by Kathy Matsika, EIFL-IP Zimbabwe and Teresa Hackett, EIFL-IP Programme Manager.

Press release from six library and archive advocate groups

WIPO SCCR/21 Conclusions (English, French, Spanish)

Read EIFL statements

Welcome to new EIFL-IP librarian from Cameroon

Welcome to M. Michel Guechoun, recently appointed by the Consortium of Cameroon University and Research Libraries (COCUREL) as the EIFL-IP coordinator. M. Guechoun works as Senior Assistant to the Director of the Central Library of the University of Yaoundé. Awa Cissé, EIFL-IP librarian in Senegal, who has received training and who represented EIFL at WIPO in 2010, will also provide support in a move to increase backup within the regions.

Some EIFL copyright resources available for colleagues in Francophone countries –

EIFL-FOSS focus for 2011

FOSS pilots and case studies supported by the EIFL-FOSS programme in 2011 are in the planning stage or already underway in a variety of areas. Some examples of these exciting and innovative projects include:

applications for disabled library users to access computer-based information;
automation of small, rural libraries;
tools to assist library users in searching and navigating online resources;
FOSS digital repositories tools;
an extension of earlier work with Koha that will result in a union catalog across three libraries;
the use of FOSS electronic resource management tools;
investigating the use of mobile phones for library operations.

We will also begin hosting monthly ‘themed’ weeks during the last week of each month that will feature activities relating to a specific theme, including webcasts, online workshops, focused discussions and so on.

The first such ‘themed week’ will take place in the week of 24^th-28^th January 2011 on the use of FOSS tools to support library users, in particular disabled users.

We will be building a resource for FOSS advocacy to library directors and decision-makers. In December 2010 we ran a survey of Library Directors and received 53 responses from 23 countries – the results from this survey will inform the contents and structure of this resource.

Finally, in October / November 2011 we plan to hold a FOSS networking / dissemination event, potentially in conjunction with a skills training event.

Disability Tools in Zimbabwe – a new project for 2011

Following the Call for Participation in October / November 2010, a number of projects are getting underway. The first of these is a project at The University of Zimbabwe Library, led by Agnes Chikonzo.

The project aims to support library users with visual disabilities by piloting two tools on public access terminals. The free, open source tools are: 1) Virtual Magnifying Glass, a screen magnification tool; and 2) Balabolka, a tool which reads aloud text from the screen to aid people who have difficulties in reading, whether due to vision impairments or reading difficulties (including dyslexia).

The University of Zimbabwe will also be piloting AccessApps – a suite of over 60 open source and freeware Windows applications which run from a USB stick. AccessApps provides a range of solutions to support writing, reading and planning as well as specific disabilities. The EIFL FOSS programme is providing 10 memory sticks containing the AccessApps bundle to the University of Zimbabwe Library. Read more...

EIFL-PLIP focus for 2011

The Public Library Innovation Programme (PLIP) is making real progress in supporting public libraries in their innovative use of technology.

Public libraries from 12 different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America are working to complete a variety of projects, including helping the unemployed to find jobs, creating local digital archives, encouraging children to use technology for education, and promoting library services for agriculture, health and e-commerce.

At the end of the projects, in April 2011, we will share many interesting case studies about the impact on users and communities, and the experiences of the libraries and their partners.

A second round of grants

Soon we will start to prepare for the next round of grants to public libraries in developing and transition countries, inviting libraries to replicate projects from the first round.

The new call will be announced in April 2011. Our aim is to launch the new projects in September 2011.

PLIP projects forge ahead

PLIP grantees are making excellent progress as can be read in the stories below. For more information please visit the PLIP area of EIFL’s website: www.eifl.net/plip

STEP interviews villagers about the Khmer Rouge

After only six months, STEP’s Digital Archive Programme has conducted nearly 70 oral history interviews with villagers of Lveate to find out how they survived during the brutal K step interviews villager hmer Rouge regime, which ruled Cambodia under the dictator Pol Pot from 1975 to 1979.

One of the main aims of the project is to keep history alive, so that one generation can learn from another. Working with the Lveate Centrestone Public Library and with local schoolteachers, STEP is finalizing the interviews and will make them available shortly.

The filmed interviews will be archived at the Lveate Centrestone Public Library, which has built a viewing room with a television set for viewers. STEP will also work with local teachers to ensure the interviews are included in the school curriculum. Find out more...

New film profiles safe space for ‘Net Generation’

Zavidovici Public Library in Bosnia-Herzegovina, has launched a new film about its innovative project which provides rural school children who have to wait many hours a week for buses with a safe space to learn new skills and to do their homework.

The film tells how librarians transformed a little-used traditional reading room into a modern multi-media centre, and renamed it the Youth Corner. A short version of the film is profiled on the EIFL Home Page; the full version can be seen on YouTube. Find out more...

Dancers celebrate second Lubuto Library

The Lubuto Library Project in Zambia has celebrated the opening of its second library.

The new library, at the Ngwerere Basic School in Lusaka’s Garden compound, was opened on November 10, with drama and dance performances, speeches and presentation of books. This is the first Lubuto library built in partnership with Zambia’s Ministry of Education.

The Lubuto Library Project is creating programmes designed to teach reading in Zambian languages on the One-Laptop-Per-Child laptops. The literacy project, currently based at the first Lubuto Library, at the Fountain of Hope street children’s centre in Lusaka, will continue at the new library, and its output will be made available through libraries and schools throughout the country. Find out more...

Photograph was taken by the Lubuto Library project; see more photos on their website.

Library helps jobseekers find work

The Braka Miladinovci Radovis Public Library’s project in Macedonia provides new skills through its

“Creative minds create job opportunities” training programme, which by now has helped 20 people (16 women and 4 men) to find jobs!

The library trains jobseekers in using computers and in job application skills – writing a letter of introduction and a CV, how to behave in a job interview, seeking jobs through the Internet and preparing an on-line CV. The project meets an important need in Macedonia, where unemployment rates are extremely high. Find out more...