UNIZULU INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY

GATEWAY TO LOCAL CONTENT

Institutional Repositories

- Traditional research documents at universities available in hard copy

- Digital Libraries run by educational institution

- Digitised intellectual assets

- Archive research owned and produced by institution

- Electronically available, accessible on www

- IR is not publishing and not document management

- IR is electronic collection of an institutions research output

- IR is a full text database of research of a particular institution

•STATUS QUO REPORTSTATUS QUO REPORT

Link between Institutional repositories and Local Content

Knowledge created and owned by

community relevant to their situation

Mutula (2008)

Examples: indigenous knowledge, theses, dissertations, community information

INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES IN AFRICA

Access to scholarly information in African Universities is limited due to:

• High cost of publishing• Lack of information policy• Poor ICT infrastructure etc.• SA university libraries lead Africa

In South Africa:

• Currently 14 Repositories in SA• Dissertation and Theses main component• Excellent networking and support in SA• Accessible on Web

UNIZULU INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY

BACKGROUND

•Started in 2007

• Existing 3200 hard copy dissertations in UNIZULU collection

• High research output in Unizulu and value of local content

• Motivated by current library trends and developments in of research

• Registered IR Project over three years

Fig.1: Phased approach of the Unizulu IR project

CURRENT STATUS OF IR PROJECT

• Steering Committee established with all stake holders

• Hardware and software installed

• Project and implementation plan approved by Library Committee

• Project registered

• Meta editing training done

• Awareness and marketing drive

• Challenges: skills, funding, copy right, staffing

Value of the IR Project for staff and researchers

• Gateway to Unizulu research

• Increase citation impact

• Effective archiving of scholarly work

• Creates collegial colleges and networking opportunities

• Bridge the digital divide

• Provide access to unique local content

CONCLUSION:

•IR digitisation world wide trend

•Unizulu IR benefits from Support and networking

•Zululand becomes part of the information society in Africa

•Becoming a gateway for local content

•Project opens many possibilities for future

•http://196.21.83.35/ uzSPACE

•http://ir.dut.ac.za/ Durban University of Technology

THANK YOU