[eifloa] eIFL INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES SETTING THE PLATFORM FOR INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION!!

[jenniferdebeer]

Congratulations Susan and eIFL. This development is very gratifying to see.
rgds, Jennifer

2007/10/25, Susan Veldsman <susan.veldsman at eifl.net>:
>
>  Dear colleagues,
>
>
>
> Over the last year we have been working hard to create a database and
> record all aspects of Institutional Repositories that have been developed in
> all our member countries. After a lot of correspondence and updating with
> countries, we can now report that 17 member eIFL countries currently have:
>
>
>
> -          27 repositories in progress
>
> -          69 active repositories,
>
> -          Total of 96 institutional repositories
>
>
>
> This gave us the opportunity to look for international co-operation with
> other projects. Being so closely associated with SURF, the Netherlands, eIFL
>  were quite aware of the DRIVER project and it follow up DRIVER II sister
> project. (Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European
> Research:DRIVER) that they were involved in. One of the objectives of DRIVER
> is to organize and build a virtual, European scale network  (portal) of
> existing institutional repositories from the Netherlands, United Kingdom,
> Germany, France and Belgium.
>
>
>
> eIFL saw the challenge and decided to piggy back on the expertise and
> technology infrastructure that the DRIVER project already had in place.
> Talks began with all parties involved and during June/July 2007 a similar
> portal(network) was created and can currently be viewed at
> http://eifl.cq2.org. (please not that this is only a test site and not to
> be distributed yet) We hope in two weeks time (GA)  we will have something
> that you could show the world!
>
>
>
> This, therefore, implies that , eIFL has organized and built a virtual,
> eIFL member country scale network  (portal) of existing institutional
> repositories from eIFL countries!!!!
>
>
>
> This is only the beginning of a long journey. A meeting was held in
> Utrecht in October  to discuss the way forward with this
> portal/infrastructure we have created. The decision was that
>
>
>
> -          a contract will be signed till December  2007 with the IT
> company to refine and adjust the portal
>
> -          general data e.g. base URLs, contact people , etc  will be
> continuously updated
>
> -          the portal will get an eIFL look and feel to it (currently it
> is on the test site, and resembles nothing of eIFL)!
>
> -          The metadata will be cleaned up, so that we could present it
> internationally
>
> -          A statistical programme will also be attached to it , to
> monitor usage from across the world
>
>
>
> eIFL's ultimate goal is to develop these repositories and getting them on
> an international standard. This will be done by training e.g  metadata,
> other standards, linking, setting up repositories. Etc etc These
> repositories should be at such a level so that they could easily feed or be
> included in e.g. DRIVER project.
>
>
>
>
>
> This has brought a great profile to eIFL and feedback has been with big
> enthusiasm and excitement!.
>
>
>
> This is not the only activities we are envisaging, we are also busy to
> "mass register"  eIFL repositories in IR registers and harvesters (OAIster
> and OpenDOAR) We are also looking at additional training that could be given
> to countries to "move" their repositories form inactive to active, as well
> as to start up repositories.
>
>
>
> I hope this has given countries enough overview, over the short term for
> the eIFL OA program?
>
>
>
> KIN REGARDS
>
> SUSAN
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Susan Veldsman
>
> eIFL content Manager
>
>
>
> 30 O'Reilly Merry Street
>
> Northmead
>
> 1510
>
> South Africa
>
>
>
> Tel: +27 11 425 4736
>
> Fax: +27 11 425 4737
>
>
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++
>
>
>
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