[eIFLoa] CALL for Entries for the DuraSpace SPARC Open Access Week Contest: Highlighting Repository Stories Worth Sharing

[Iryna Kuchma]

Have you been a part of establishing or maintaining a unique digital
repository that provides open access to a collection that was previously not
used or under-used? Do you enjoy showcasing your repository’s content and
the cool tools that encourage use of the materials? Do you have anecdotes
about how access to resources from your repository changed someone’s life,
or their thinking on an issue, or contributed to a breakthrough idea? Please
consider sharing your passion and knowledge of collecting, curating managing
and sharing digital repository resources from every corner of the globe by
entering the DuraSpace SPARC Open Access Week Contest and telling your
story.

Of the more than 700 DuraSpace (http://DuraSpace.org/) repositories
worldwide many provide open access to their online resources for users and
patrons. The aim of the DuraSpace SPARC Open Access Week Contest is to
celebrate your organization’s commitment to online development and
dissemination of diverse–and often hidden–digital assets by describing
unique cases and serendipitous uses that make remarkable things happen.

Judy Breck writes in her introduction to the “Golden Swamp” Web site (
http://www.goldenswamp.com/) which highlights the virtual ecology that
emerges in the open Internet: “A global golden age is trickling across our
threshold and will very soon pour in through our doors and windows engulfing
us all. This tsunami is grand news.”

Please help DuraSpace share your “grand news” by highlighting your hidden
treasures and how they are used. Whether your repository features
three-dimensional historic objects that turn in space, photographs and
artworks, unique media collections, historic documents, scientific
artifacts, out-of-print volumes or any other type of digital object please
consider telling your story about how these culturally significant resources
have helped to shape the global knowledge landscape.

Entries will be accepted at http://duraspace.org/contest.php beginning on
Tuesday, September 1, 2009. through September 28, 2009. DuraSpace SPARC Open
Access Week Contest winners will be announced on October 1, 2009. Winners
will receive $50 Amazon gift certificates and will be invited to tell their
stories during the Sun/DuraSpace/SPARC “All About Repositories” Web Seminar
on Oct. 14, 2009. This Web Seminar will be part of the DuraSpace SPARC
Global Open Access Week (http://www.openaccessweek.org) package of materials
that will be available in honor of Open AccessWeek Oct. 19-23, 2009.

(From the DuraSpace Blog Digest, Vol. 1, Issue 2, August 2009)