EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) is delighted to announce a new project, ‘Open Access  in Palestine’, with Palestine Polytechnic University and the Palestinian Library and Information Consortium (PALICO), which is an EIFL partner consortium.

Most Palestinian universities have not yet embraced open access (OA). The project aims to raise awareness about OA and to provide an opportunity for libraries and the research community to share knowledge and information about the benefits of OA.

The project will reach out to researchers and research administrators, librarians and information technology staff in the PALICO community.

FOUR KEY PROJECT ACTIVITIES

Activities are built around four major events to be held in the West Bank: An-Najah National University, Birzeit University and Palestine Polytechnic University will host three workshops under the banner, ‘Open Access: How to maximize the impact, efficiency and availability of your research’. In addition, Birzeit University will host a meeting of the Research Council that includes research administrators from all universities in Palestine.

EIFL Open Access Programme manager Iryna Kuchma will introduce OA to workshop participants, and demonstrate how OA helps researchers and increases the visibility and impact of publications. Brian Hole, Ubiquity Press, will talk about OA publishing and Stephen Urgola, The American University in Cairo, about The American University in Cairo Digital Archive and Research Repository (DAR Repository).

Participants will discuss OA publishing; developing and using OA repositories using DSpace software; how to conduct research in the digital environment, and how to manage copyright and author's rights when publishing research articles.

The project will encourage researchers to publish in OA journals and deposit their work in OA repositories. PALICO members will also discuss development of institutional and national OA policies.