Open Access Week 2010 begins – activities in EIFL partner countries

October 18 marks the start of Open Access Week 2010, as thousands of scholars, faculty, and students in nearly 90 countries worldwide participate in events to raise awareness and advance understanding of the benefits of open access. A global event now entering its fourth year, Open Access Week (October 18 to 24) is an opportunity for the academic and research community to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access (OA), to share ideas with colleagues, and to inspire wider participation in establishing Open Access as a new norm in scholarship and research. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, research organizations, non-profits, businesses, and others use as a valuable platform to launch institution-wide open-access policies, expanded open-access publication funds, and new reports on the societal and economic benefits of OA.

Below is a summary of activities in over 20 EIFL partner countries from Armenia to Zimbabwe.

Bulgaria: OpenAIRE National Open Access Desk, the European Digital Mathematics Library EuDML , ATLAS (Applied Technology for Language-Aided CMS) and OpenScout (skill based scouting of open user-generated and community-improved content for management education and training), with the support of the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences are organizing The National Information Day Open Access to Scientific Information.

Egypt:

· On October 17 Mandy Taha, EIFL Open Access country coordinator gave a seminar for students and young researchers at in the Bibliotheca Alexandria “Open Access: Explore, learn, and share effectively”.

· On October 19 “Open Access? Get more citations!” workshop at the Science Faculty, Alexandria University is planned;

· On October 20 Open Access for students and young researchers workshop will take place at Arab Academy for Science and Technology 

· And on October 24 Open Access will be explored from the library perspective at the workshop Open Access and Librarians Role at the Alexandria library.

Contact person: Mandy Taha, EIFL Open Access country coordinator.

Estonia: University of Tartu organises an Open Access workshop on October 19-20.

Ethiopia: Addis Ababa University celebrates Open Access week with a series of events.

Ghana: the Institutional Repository team of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Kumasi released two videos where a researcher and a senior assistant librarian  talk about open access benefits.

Kenya:

· Danstone Malava, Kimathi University College of Technology, Library Department, Nyeri Kenya, prepared a series of videos with researchers What a wonderful experience with open access: Open access is power because it empowers, The sky is the limit for open access, and Untitled.

· The JKUAT library is planning a series of activities geared towards creating sensitization and awareness of the open access movement and open access information resources during this week.

Latvia: the Library of the University of Latvia organized a workshop "Open Access and OpenAIRE - challenge and opportunity for Latvian scientific progress" on the 18th October at the University of Latvia. 

Lithuania:

· Celebrating the Open Access Week Lithuanian Research Library Consortium (LMBA) is organizing a conference "Possibilities to disseminate the Lithuanian research journals world wide" on October 21st. The conference will be held in the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania in Vilnius. Target audience - research journals publishers, researchers who publish in these journals. The conference is organized in collaboration with the Lithuanian Serials Association and the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.

· The LMBA Consortium member - ISM University of management and Economics organized an international conference "Innovation Driven Enterpreneurship" and on October 15th a post conference "Innovation in Academic Publishing" was organized by the library. Among the speakers - Alma Swan (via skype) and Daniel Williamson.

Macedonia: As a result of series of trainings Metamorphosis Foundation conducted and the localization and virtualization of dSpace in Macedonian and Albanian the first open access repository in Macedonia is launched at the Institute of Economics in Skopje.

Mali: REIMICOM/KENEYA-BLOWN and the library of the faculty of medicine of the University of Bamako are organizing a conference Rôle de l’Open Access dans l’accès à l’information scientifique dans les pays en voie de développement on October 18-19. Among the speakers: Abdramane Anne and Lassina Diallo.

Moldova:

· Master’s Degrees students of the Faculty of Journalism and Communication of Information of the State University of Moldova created a video about the importance of Open Access for science and education. 

· On October 18 the press conference was organised to launch the first open access repository in the country in the Library of the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova.

· The Annual Conference of the Librarians’ Association of Moldova is entirely devoted to the problems of Open Access in the Republic of Moldova (November11-12).

Mongolia: the first Open Access Advocacy workshop in Mongolia, on October 19 

Mozambique: Aissa Mitha Issak, EIFL Open Access country coordinator, is organizing events in the University libraries.

Nigeria: University of Jos showcasing the successes of open access institutional repository – the first in the country.

Poland:

· On October 10 Samorząd Doktorantów Instytut Podstawowych Problemów Techniki PAN has launched a new web page about open access model and organized on the first seminar for PhD students in Warsaw on open access to knowledge.

· Coalition for Open Education is working on Recommendation of Open Access for science that will be published and distributed during the Open Access Week.

· On October 18 and 25 and on November 8 Instytut Biochemii i Biofizyki PAN (Warsaw) is organising a series of lectures “Learning 2.0 – the practical aspects of the Internet revolution in science” chaired by dr Paul Felix.

· On October 21 a seminar on Open Science within Warsaw the Science and Academic Book Fair ACADEMIA 2010 is planned.

· On October 22 the Library of the University of Łódź organises seminar for students and academic staff on Open Access movement.

· And on October 29 and on November 19 Pedagogical Library in Gorzów Wielkopolski is organising a workshops about open access for students of Polish philology at Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa w Gorzowie Wlkp moderated by Maja Wilczewska-Wojczyszyn.

· EBIB Association has updated portal for librarians and added to Open Access section information about Polish projects and events organised during Open Access Week. It also helds action for increasing the visibility of open publication prepared by librarians.

On the occasion of the celebration of International Open Access Week, Bożena Bednarek-Michalska, Nicolaus Copernicus University Library in Torun and EIFL-OA country coordinator in Poland, interviewed Under Secretary of State, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education Professor Maciej Banach (in Polish language, available online here : http://vimeo.com/15972149).

· More events are here. Information from Bożena Bednarek-Michalska, EIFL-OA country coordinator.

Serbia: KoBSON (Serbian Library Consortium for Coordinated Acquisition) and the National Library worked with DOAJ to add 21 new Serbian Open Access journals to DOAJ. In the last few days more than 4,800 articles metadata for all these journals were deposited (using very good, and easy to use, service developed by Lund for uploading XML). This cooperation was successful, and the other EIFL partner countries could follow it.

Slovenia: Open Access to the Achievements of Slovenian Scientists - 4th joint conference of the Special Libraries Section and the Academic Libraries Section of the Slovenian Library Association under the auspices of the Slovenian Research Agency will be organised in Ljubljana on October 27-28.

South Africa:

· Wits University started Open Access week with a seminar Openness – the key to creating a culture of innovation at Wits with Professor Derek Keats (Deputy Vice Chancellor, Knowledge and Information Management) and Susan Veldsman (Director: Scholarly Publishing Unit, Academy of Science of South Africa). Among other seminars planned: 19 Oct – Publishing Smart – Tools that maximize scholarly impact; 20 Oct – Open Education - Openness and educational resources; 21 Oct – The Right to Research – an activists guide to Open Access; 22 Oct – What are you doing about Open Access? 

· On October 19 the University of Johannesburg is organising an Open Access seminar;

· On October 20 the Stellenbosch University Open Access virual seminar is planned. On this day the Rector or his designate will be signing the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities to demonstrate the University’s commitment to openly sharing its research output with Africa and the rest of the world. Stellenbosch University will become the first African and South African university to sign this declaration.

· On October 21 “Open up your research with the Creative Commons license (copyright option)!” workshop will take place at the University of Pretoria (UP) – Dr Tobias Schonwetter, legal head of Creative Commons South Africa, will give a presentation on the impact of the Creative Commons licenses on Open Access and what Creative Commons is doing to build an ecosystem of openness. UP staff members including researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students can pledge their support to Open Access and http://www.library.up.ac.za/openup/competition.htm (four 4GB @mire USB flash drives) telling why Open Access to research information is important to them. 

· And on October 22 a launch of the Research Repository at the University of the Western Cape is planed. The formal programme features a high profile researcher who chairs the Committee on Scholarly Publishing in South Africa, some presentations about Open Access and reform of scholarly communication system, a theatrical sketch performed by faculty librarians, and a handover of OA t-shirts to early adopters and supporters of the Repository.

Tanzania: Consortium for Tanzania Universities and Research Libraries (COTUL) will hold an open access event during OA week.

Ukraine: On October 14, 2010 the American Library of National University Kyiv Mohyla Academy hosted an Open Access Section meeting as part of the 2nd International Forum “Informatio 2010: Current Issues of Information Society”. Presentations included current developments in open access projects worldwide, and knowledge sharing among Ukrainian repository projects managers. The participants discussed benefits and challenges and outlined cooperative actions to promote open access in Ukraine.

Zimbabwe: Chinhoyi University of Technology is organising an open access workshop for academic staff on the 26th of October. The workshop will cover open access publishing and institutional repositories.

Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of sciences of Armenia, Vasyl Stefanyk Lviv National Scientific Library of Ukraine and many more wear Open Access Week banners.

Melissa Hagemann, a program manager in the Open Society Foundations Information Program, was interviewed by Laura Brahm about the Open Access movement: Making Scientific Research Accessible to All.

Find out more activities through the Web site at www.openaccessweek.org and add your events! Open Access Week is organized by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with expert guidance from an international panel of Open Access leaders. Program advisers include: Subbiah Arunachalam (Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore), Lucy Browse (INASP), Leslie Chan (University of Toronto, Scarborough, OASIS), Melissa Hagemann (Open Society Institute), Thomas Hickerson (University of Calgary), Heather Joseph (SPARC), Iryna Kuchma (eIFL.net), Li Lin (National Science Library, CAS), Donna Okubo (Public Library of Science), Robin Peek (Open Access Directory, Simmons College), Carolina Rossini (Berkman Center), Nick Shockey (Right to Research Coalition), Peter Suber (Berkman Center, Earlham College, SPARC), Alma Swan (Key Perspectives Ltd, OASIS), Ikuko Tsuchide (Digital Repository Federation, Japan), Astrid van Wesenbeeck (SPARC Europe), Xiaolin Zhang (National Science Library, CAS).

For more information, visit the Open Access Week Web site at http://www.openaccessweek.org. 

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