Open Access to Research in Malawi Open Access Advocacy Workshop, 29 th October 2009 Kondwani Wella...

Open Access to Research in Malawi

Open Access Advocacy Workshop, 29th October 2009

Kondwani WellaKCN College Librarian, eIFL- Coordinator

Outline

• Introduction

• Cases

• Open access IR in Malawi

• Challenges

• Opportunities

• Way forward

Introduction

• Malawi has 2 major universities; several upcoming universities

• Malawi has 4 major Research Stations (6 sub-stations)

• Several commissioned research going on– All these generate interesting findings, – Published in international journals– Locked away in offices

Opening thoughts!!

• Is OPEN necessarily ACCESSIBLE?

• Do information retrieval tools matter at all

• Is the World Wide Web open?

Case 1: Article Published by Bunda Researchers

When accessed in Malawi

Asked to buy!!!

Case 2: National HerbariumBook chapter published in “Poverty in Africa”

The cost of the book

Case 3: Conference papers

Not searchable

Full-text from WASHTED website

Case 4: Theses and Dissertations

Not searchable

Not searchable

What do these cases tell us?

• Malawi has embraced open access?

• With internet anyone can manage information?

• Researchers no longer trust librarians?

• Librarians are not doing their job?

• There is no collaboration between librarians and researchers?

questions???

• Why should we buy articles published in Malawi?

• Is the ‘world’ unfair or we are being unfair to ourselves?

Open Access Repositories in Malawi

Open access repositories in Malawi

• Bunda College – Greenstone repository of Malawiana

• Chancellor College – DSpace Malawiana

• College of Medicine – DSpace and Greenstone repository

• Mzuzu University – Greenstone repository

• MALICO – DATAD theses and dissertations repository

Challenges

• Copyright/Intellectual property law

• Faculty and researcher buy-in??

• Institutional support?

• Collaboration, partnerships (not there yet)

• Infrastructure (connectivity) – being addressed by MALICO, MAREN and UbuntuNet Alliance

Opportunities

• Librarians in Malawi have re-trained/trained to embrace new paradigms

• Open source solutions available

• Government support for tertiary education, research, science and technology

• Initiatives to improve connectivity (MALICO, MAREN, Ubuntunet Alliance)

• Malawi Library and Information Consortium

Way forward• Strengthen collaboration (Librarians,

researchers, policy makers, ICT professionals)

• Look for funding for capital equipment

• Strengthen MALICO (resources, secretariat)

• Build strong partnership between MALICO, MAREN, NRCM etc

• Build a national repository

Questions & Discussion

kwella@kcn.unima.mw