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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