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IFLA/Unesco Internet Manifesto Guidelines
by Subbiah Arunachalam 02 Dec '06

02 Dec '06

Friends: The IFLA/Unesco Internet Manifesto Guidelines are just released. Please visit <http://www.ifla.org/faife/policy/iflastat/Internet-ManifestoGuidelines.pdf>. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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Fwd: you may like this
by Padmanabha Vyasamoorthy 02 Dec '06

02 Dec '06

Dear Friends The link given below was brought to my attention by Justice TNC Rangarajan. "Library flow" is a site For librarians, by librarians! Where do you get your library news?... Read, recommend, and comment on articles. Blog search included. One pace to stay updated. http://www.personalbee.com/1084 Regards Vyasamoorthy ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Macinfo <tncrangarajan(a)macinfo.net> Date: Dec 2, 2006 8:05 AM Subject: you may like this To: You! <tncrangarajan(a)macinfo.net> http://www.personalbee.com/1084 -- Dr P Vyasamoorthy, Society for Serving Seniors (Formerly SENIORS) 30, Gruhalakshmi Colony, Secunderabad 500015 Phone 27846631

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World Digital Library project
by vimal kumar 02 Dec '06

02 Dec '06

Dear Friends, UNESCO and the Library of Congress will host today at UNESCO Paris Headquarters a meeting to pave the way for the launch of a World Digital Library, an internet-based repository of knowledge from all cultures and in all languages. To read more visit the link, http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=23521&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECT… Vimal Kumar Asian School of Business Technopark Trivandrum-695 581 vimal0212(a)yahoo.com www.asb.edu.in --------------------------------- Check out the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta - Fire up a more powerful email and get things done faster. UNESCO and the Library of Congress will host today at UNESCO Paris Headquarters a meeting to pave the way for the launch of a World Digital Library, an internet-based repository of knowledge from all cultures and in all languages. To read more visit the link, http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=23521&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECT… Vimal Kumar Asian School of Business Technopark Trivandrum-695 581 vimal0212(a)yahoo.com www.asb.edu.in Check out http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=43257/*http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailb… the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta - Fire up a more powerful email and get things done faster.

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Open Access and health in developing countries
by Subbiah Arunachalam 01 Dec '06

01 Dec '06

>From Peter Suber's "Open Access News" OA for human welfare Gavin Yamey and Calestous Juma, Improving Human Welfare: The Crucial Role of Open Access, Science Editor 29, 5 (2006) pp. 163-165. Self-archived November 30, 2006. Abstract: Developing countries are increasingly improving their capacity to use scientific and technical knowledge to solve local problems. They are investing in communication infrastructure and improving technology policies. For such measures to be effective, those countries also need greater access to the worlds pool of knowledge. Restrictions on access to scientific and health information are hindering progress, particularly in the worlds least-developed countries, and are impeding efforts toward global development. Essential information is locked away behind such barriers as journal subscription charges or individual article download fees. Journal articles are typically subject to restrictive copyright licenses that prevent reproduction, distribution, translation, or the creation of derivative works, all of which would help published work to be used for innovation. These restrictions are compounded by infrastructure inadequacies and lack of incentives for increasing the use of scientific and technologic knowledge in solving challenges in developing countries. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Photos NEW, now offering a quality print service from just 7p a photo http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

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MetaGlossary
by sandeep bhavsar 01 Dec '06

01 Dec '06

Respected All MetaGlossary http://www.metaglossary.com/ Meta means beyond, more comprehensive, or more highly organized, and with respect to other dictionaries and glossaries, MetaGlossary is all these things. MetaGlossary harvests definitions from the entire web, the world's largest, constantly-updated repository of information. Hence, it surpasses traditional dictionaries, which grow more out of date with each passing day. MetaGlossary is as dynamic as the web, offering the most current information out there on the most contemporary topics. However, unlike other search engines, MetaGlossary is able to precisely extract the meanings of terms and phrases from the often frustratingly unmanageable mass of information on the web. It provides you with concise, direct explanations for terms and phrases, not just endless links to sift through in search of a comprehensive definition. What's more, MetaGlossary organizes these meanings based on topic and usage, so you'll find the one you're looking for quickly and easily. Since MetaGlossary spans the expanse of the web, even your most field-specific requests for terms, phrases, acronyms, technical jargon, and slang, will be successfully met Best Regards Sandeep Bhavsar Librarian Dr.V.N.Bedekar Institute of Management Studies Thane(W). 400601 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ email : sandeep.bhavsar(a)gmail.com Mob : 09870484626 elibrary : http://www.vpmthane.org/im/elib/main.htm @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com Respected All MetaGlossary http://www.metaglossary.com/ http://www.metaglossary.com/ Meta means beyond, more comprehensive, or more highly organized, and with respect to other dictionaries and glossaries, MetaGlossary is all these things. MetaGlossary harvests definitions from the entire web, the world's largest, constantly-updated repository of information. Hence, it surpasses traditional dictionaries, which grow more out of date with each passing day. MetaGlossary is as dynamic as the web, offering the most current information out there on the most contemporary topics. However, unlike other search engines, MetaGlossary is able to precisely extract the meanings of terms and phrases from the often frustratingly unmanageable mass of information on the web. It provides you with concise, direct explanations for terms and phrases, not just endless links to sift through in search of a comprehensive definition. What's more, MetaGlossary organizes these meanings based on topic and usage, so you'll find the one you're looking for quickly and easily. Since MetaGlossary spans the expanse of the web, even your most field-specific requests for terms, phrases, acronyms, technical jargon, and slang, will be successfully met Best Regards Sandeep Bhavsar Librarian Dr.V.N.Bedekar Institute of Management Studies Thane(W). 400601 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ email : sandeep.bhavsar(a)gmail.com Mob : 09870484626 elibrary : http://www.vpmthane.org/im/elib/main.htm @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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How can a declaration be implemented without involving policy makers from the government?
by Subbiah Arunachalam 01 Dec '06

01 Dec '06

Friends: While welcoming the policy statement that emerged from the Bangalore workshop on electronic publishing and open access and which developing countries and their funding agencies could adopt, someone commented that "we should work jointly to ensure that policy makers from the government should be involved in the movement if any declaration has to be implemented in a developing country", and "how can a declaration be implemented without involving policy makers from the government." I am sure people who want to bring about a major transformation would know this. It would be naive to expect policy makers such as Prof. C N R Rao, Dr R Chidambaram or Dr R A Mashelkar to attend a two-day workshop on open access. We did invite senior officials of DST, DSIR, DBT, etc. but they could not attend (for valid reasons). But policy makers - members of the Science Advisory Council, for example - attended and spoke at the workshop. What is relevant is that policy makers have been involved for a very long time. Pardon me for confining myself to what I have been doing. I have been speaking to key people in the Ministry of Science, Office of the Prinicipal Scientific Adviser, the Science Advisory Council and the Academies ever since I took interest in promoting the culture of open access. To give a few examples, I have had many conversations (mostly by email and occasionally face-to-face) with Professor M S Valiathan, then President of INSA. He signed the Berlin Declaration on behalf of INSA, he convened a one-day meet on open access at the Annual Meeting of INSA held at NCL, Pune, and invited me to speak as well as to suggest names of other potential speakers, and made all INSA journals open access. I have been talking to Prof. N Balakrishnan, who is not only the Associate Director of IISc but also an important person in Indian science and higher education policy circles. He set up India's first super computer centre and India's first institutional archive and is heading the internationally known Million Books Digital Library programme. I have been talking to Prof. N Mukunda, Editor of publications of the Indian Academy of Sciences and a former chiar of the INASP advisory board. We even attended a open access conference at Unesco together a few years ago where I introduced him to Abel Packer, the key person behind SciELO and BIREME. It was then we extended an invitation to Abel to come to India, and it took four years for him to actually visit us! The Indian Academy made all its 11 journals open access. I have been talking to the members and advisors of the National Knowledge Commission and the NKC is likely to recommend adoption of OA for publicly funded research. I have spoken to the secretaries and senior officials of DST and DSIR many times about the need for mandating open access. I have addressed a meeting attended by many members of the SAC-PM and the PSA to the GoI and argued in favour of open access. I have been alerting DBT and the coordinators of the Bioinformatics Centres for the past five years about the need for adopting OA. I have spoken to NAAS and the top brass of ICAR about the need for adopting OA. I am also in touch with policy makers in other developing countries, international organizations and funding agencies. The B'lore meeting was held at IISc with the cooperation of IASc and was attended among others by Prof. Balakrishnan and Prof. Gadagkar and several other Fellows of the Academies. I am talking to people at all levels - from the level of technical assistants and officers who actually set up and maintain OA archives to Directors of institutions and Secretaries to the Government of India and Presidents of Academies. I am not the only one who is trying to promote OA in India and the developing world. There are many others and all of us recognise the importance of working together. In fact I have coauthored papers with Peter Suber, Barbara Kirsop, and Leslie Chan. As the governments happen to be the major providers of funds for research in all developing countries, we need to persuade them to mandate. How can we neglect or ignore them? Besides we believe in sharing knowledge (that is why we are ready to hold workshops and spend so much time and energy in disseminating news on current developments) and building multi stakeholder partnerships. [Incidentally, for an earlier workshop (held at Hyderabad as part of the Science Congress) we even sought some funds from DSIR and NIC, but did not get any. (Our application to DSIR was filed rather late.) We were very hopeful of getting some funds from NIC, as they were actively engaged in open access initiatives, but did not get any. Then we approached OSI and a Bombay-based good samaritan, and both of them agreed very readily to support the travel of three speakers, and ICRISAT provided free accommodation.] . This time around, but for the timely intervention of a DSIR officer the Chinese participants would not have made it to the Bangalore workshop. To conclude, rest assured we have been working with policy makers both within and outside the government and we will continue to do so. I wonder how anyone could have got the impression that we are not involving policy makers from the government. Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] Friends: While welcoming the policy statement that emerged from the Bangalore workshop on electronic publishing and open access and which developing countries and their funding agencies could adopt, someone commented that "we should work jointly to ensure that policy makers from the government should be involved in the movement if any declaration has to be implemented in a developing country", and "how can a declaration be implemented without involving policy makers from the government." I am sure people who want to bring about a major transformation would know this. It would be naive to expect policy makers such as Prof. C N R Rao, Dr R Chidambaram or Dr R A Mashelkar to attend a two-day workshop on open access. We did invite senior officials of DST, DSIR, DBT, etc. but they could not attend (for valid reasons). But p olicy makers - members of the Science Advisory Council, for example - attended and spoke at the workshop. What is relevant is that policy makers have been involved for a very long time. Pardon me for confining myself to what I have been doing. I have been speaking to key people in the Ministry of Science, Office of the Prinicipal Scientific Adviser, the Science Advisory Council and the Academies ever since I took interest in promoting the culture of open access. To give a few examples, I have had many conversations (mostly by email and occasionally face-to-face) with Professor M S Valiathan, then President of INSA. He signed the Berlin Declaration on behalf of INSA, he convened a one-day meet on open access at the Annual Meeting of INSA held at NCL, Pune, and invited me to speak as well as to suggest names of other potential speakers, and made all INSA journals open access. I have been talking to Prof. N Balakrishnan, who is not only the Associate Director of IISc but also an important person in Indian science and higher education policy circles. He set up India's first super computer centre and India's first institutional archive and is heading the internationally known Million Books Digital Library programme. I have been talking to Prof. N Mukunda, Editor of publications of the Indian Academy of Sciences and a former chiar of the INASP advisory board. We even attended a open access conference at Unesco together a few years ago where I introduced him to Abel Packer, the key person behind SciELO and BIREME. It was then we extended an invitation to Abel to come to India, and it took four years for him to actually visit us! The Indian Academy made all its 11 journals open access. I have been talking to the members and advisors of the National Knowledge Commission and the NKC is likely to recommend adoption of OA for publicly funded research. I have spoken to the secretaries and senior officials of DST and DSIR many times about the need for mandating open access. I have addressed a meeting attended by many members of the SAC-PM and the PSA to the GoI and argued in favour of open access. I have been alerting DBT and the coordinators of the Bioinformatics Centres for the past five years about the need for adopting OA. I have spoken to NAAS and the top brass of ICAR about the need for adopting OA. I am also in touch with policy makers in other developing countries, international organizations and funding agencies. The B'lore meeting was held at IISc with the cooperation of IASc and was attended among others by Prof. Balakrishnan and Prof. Gadagkar and several other Fellows of the Academies. I am talking to people at all levels - from the level of technical assistants and officers who actually set up and maintain OA archives to Directors of institutions and Secretaries to the Government of India and Presidents of Academies. I am not the only one who is trying to promote OA in India and the developing world. There are many others and all of us recognise the importance of working together. In fact I have coauthored papers with Peter Suber, Barbara Kirsop, and Leslie Chan. As the governments happen to be the major providers of funds for research in all developing countries, we need to persuade them to mandate. How can we neglect or ignore them? Besides we believe in sharing knowledge (that is why we are ready to hold workshops and spend so much time and energy in disseminating news on current developments) and building multi stakeholder partnerships. [Incidentally, for an earlier workshop (held at Hyderabad as part of the Science Congress) we even sought some funds from DSIR and NIC, but did not get any. (Our application to DSIR was filed rather late.) We were very hopeful of getting some funds from NIC, as they were actively engaged in open access initiatives, but did not get any. Then we approached OSI and a Bombay-based good samaritan, and both of them agreed very readily to support the travel of three speakers, and ICRISAT provided free accommodation.] . This time around, but for the timely intervention of a DSIR officer the Chinese participants would not have made it to the Bangalore workshop. To conclude, rest assured we have been working with policy makers both within and outside the government and we will continue to do so. I wonder how anyone could have got the impression that we are not involving policy makers from the government. Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam]

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Dr. Eugene Garfield ( Father of Scientometrics and Bibliometrics) wins the Online Information Lifetime Achievement Award
by Mallikarjuna, H.B 01 Dec '06

01 Dec '06

Dr. Eugene Garfield Wins The Online Information Lifetime Achievement Award " Thomson Scientific, part of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC) and leading provider of information solutions to the worldwide research and business communities, today announced that Dr. Eugene Garfield is the 2006 recipient of the Online Information Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of more than 50 years of dedication, leadership and innovation in the information industry. The 2006 International Information Industry Awards were held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, UK on Wednesday, November 29th. Often dubbed the Father of Scientometrics and Bibliometrics, Dr. Garfield is founder & chairman emeritus of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI®)now Thomson Scientific. Garfields career in scientific communication and information science began in 1951 when he joined the Welch Medical Indexing Project at Johns Hopkins University, USA. The project planted the seeds for several major advances in scientific communication and information science that have distinguished Dr. Garfields career. In 1958, Garfield was contacted by Joshua Lederberg, who was interested in knowing what happened to the citation index Garfield proposed in 1955 in the journal, Science. This, eventually led to a meeting with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to produce and distribute a Genetics Citation Index, including a multi-disciplinary index to the science literature of 1961. Undaunted by the NIH and National Science Foundations (NSF) disinterest in publishing the latter index, Garfield began regularly publishing the Science Citation Index® (SCI®) in 1964 through the Institute for Scientific Information. The SCI® soon istinguished itself from other literature indexes and was recognized as a basic and fundamental innovation in scientific communication and information science. >From 1961 on, Garfields career is marked by the constant enhancement of existing resources combined with the extraordinary development of new information tools for researchers, including Current Contents®, plus citation indexes for the social sciences (SSCI®) and arts and humanities (A&HCI®). During the past decades, as the volume of literature has been growing exponentially, Garfields innovations have made it possible for researchers to cope with and keep up with articles directly relevant to their interests. Current Contents has become a vital and basic component of clinical research and the research laboratory. The SCI has become an important tool for navigating the scientific literature. With the advent of the Internet the SCI, SSCI, and A&HCI were integrated into the online information solutionWeb of Science®. Web of Science is the leading resource that provides seamless access to current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from the most prestigious, high-impact research journals in the world. Web of Science also provides a unique search method, cited reference searching. With it, users can navigate forward, backward, and through the literature, searching all disciplines and time spans (back to 1900) to uncover all the information relevant to their research. Today, Web of Science is a key component of ISI Web of Knowledge(SM)the ground-breaking, integrated research platform that facilitates discovery by offering seamless navigation to high-quality, multidisciplinary journal, patent, and web content; evaluation tools; and bibliographic management products. At age 81, Dr. Garfield maintains a heavy schedule of invited speeches and presentations before high-level medical, scientific, and information symposia and conferences. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions. He has published over 1,000 weekly essays in Current Contents and has also published and edited commentaries by the authors of over 5,000 Citation Classics. Dr Garfield continues to be active in scientific communication and information science. In 1986, he founded The Scientist, a bi-weekly newspaper for research professionals. It reports on news and developments relevant to the professional and practical interests of scientists, providing a unique forum for the discussion of issues important both to the research community and society. Accepting the award, Dr. Garfield expressed his gratitude to Online Information, colleagues, the research and information communities, employees, and friends around the world who supported him throughout his career and inspired his significant contributions to the information industry. He saved his most important thanks for last to his family." Eugene Garfield, Ph.D. Interviews: http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/interviews.html -- Regards hbmallikarjuna hbmallikarjuna[at]gmail.com http://mallikarjunahb.blogspot.com Indian Libraries and Librarians search engine :http://tinyurl.com/yfrozb --------------------------------- Find out what India is talking about on - Yahoo! Answers India Send FREE SMS to your friend's mobile from Yahoo! Messenger Version 8. Get it NOW Dr. Eugene Garfield Wins The Online Information Lifetime Achievement Award " Thomson Scientific, part of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC) and leading provider of information solutions to the worldwide research and business communities, today announced that Dr. Eugene Garfield is the 2006 recipient of the Online Information Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of more than 50 years of dedication, leadership and innovation in the information industry. The 2006 International Information Industry Awards were held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, UK on Wednesday, November 29th. Often dubbed the Father of Scientometrics and Bibliometrics, Dr. Garfield is founder & chairman emeritus of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI®)now Thomson Scientific. Garfields career in scientific communication and information science began in 1951 when he joined the Welch Medical Indexing Project at Johns Hopkins University, USA. The project planted the seeds for several major advances in scientific communication and information science that have distinguished Dr. Garfields career. In 1958, Garfield was contacted by Joshua Lederberg, who was interested in knowing what happened to the citation index Garfield proposed in 1955 in the journal, Science. This, eventually led to a meeting with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to produce and distribute a Genetics Citation Index, including a multi-disciplinary index to the science literature of 1961. Undaunted by the NIH and National Science Foundations (NSF) disinterest in publishing the latter index, Garfield began regularly publishing the Science Citation Index® (SCI®) in 1964 through the Institute for Scientific Information. The SCI® soon istinguished itself from other literature indexes and was recognized as a basic and fundamental innovation in scientific communication and information science. >From 1961 on, Garfields career is marked by the constant enhancement of existing resources combined with the extraordinary development of new information tools for researchers, including Current Contents®, plus citation indexes for the social sciences (SSCI®) and arts and humanities (A&HCI®). During the past decades, as the volume of literature has been growing exponentially, Garfields innovations have made it possible for researchers to cope with and keep up with articles directly relevant to their interests. Current Contents has become a vital and basic component of clinical research and the research laboratory. The SCI has become an important tool for navigating the scientific literature. With the advent of the Internet the SCI, SSCI, and A&HCI were integrated into the online information solutionWeb of Science®. Web of Science is the leading resource that provides seamless access to current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from the most prestigious, high-impact research journals in the world. Web of Science also provides a unique search method, cited reference searching. With it, users can navigate forward, backward, and through the literature, searching all disciplines and time spans (back to 1900) to uncover all the information relevant to their research. Today, Web of Science is a key component of ISI Web of Knowledge(SM)the ground-breaking, integrated research platform that facilitates discovery by offering seamless navigation to high-quality, multidisciplinary journal, patent, and web content; evaluation tools; and bibliographic management products. At age 81, Dr. Garfield maintains a heavy schedule of invited speeches and presentations before high-level medical, scientific, and information symposia and conferences. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions. He has published over 1,000 weekly essays in Current Contents and has also published and edited commentaries by the authors of over 5,000 Citation Classics. Dr Garfield continues to be active in scientific communication and information science. In 1986, he founded The Scientist, a bi-weekly newspaper for research professionals. It reports on news and developments relevant to the professional and practical interests of scientists, providing a unique forum for the discussion of issues important both to the research community and society. Accepting the award, Dr. Garfield expressed his gratitude to Online Information, colleagues, the research and information communities, employees, and friends around the world who supported him throughout his career and inspired his significant contributions to the information industry. He saved his most important thanks for last to his family." Eugene Garfield, Ph.D. Interviews: http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/interviews.html -- Regards hbmallikarjuna hbmallikarjuna[at]gmail.com http://mallikarjunahb.blogspot.com Indian Libraries and Librarians search engine :http://tinyurl.com/yfrozb Find out what India is talking about on - http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/yanswers/*http://in.answers.yahoo.com/ Yahoo! Answers India Send FREE SMS to your friend's mobile from Yahoo! Messenger Version 8. http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/messengertagline/*http://in.messenger.yahoo.… Get it NOW

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EMPI Knowledge & Learning Resource Centre Launches its Official Website
by PARSAI KAMAL L. 01 Dec '06

01 Dec '06

Dr. Shailendra Kumar , Department of Library & Information Science, Delhi University & National Advisory Board Member, EMPI Digital Library National Convention 2007 launched the Convention¢s Official Website http://www.empidlnc.org. on Wednesday, 29th November, 2006 , at the premises of the EMPI Business School ¢s Knowledge & Learning Resource Centre. Mr. Gurnam Saran, President, EMPI Group of Institutions, Mrs. Rumma Sharma, Deputy Director (Library), CME, AIMA, New Delhi & Members of the Organizing Board were the prominent dignitaries at the inaugural function. Later, Dr. Shailendra Kumar read, at the EMPIs R&D Conference Room No. 2, his paper on " Dynamics of Information from the Village to the Research Laboratory ." The paper was illuminating and thought provoking for all who are interested in reducing 'the Digital Divide' between the Rural and Urban populations, the Illiterate and the Academicians. The prime objectives of launching the website http://www.empidlnc.org are 1. EMPI Knowledge and Resource Center 's continuing efforts of promoting & shaping the Digital Library concepts and practices in India , 2. To share and contribute the best expertise about implementing, governing and regulating Digital Library processes and practices, and make a platform to announce various EMPI training and educational activities on developing Modern Knowledge & Learning Resource Centres. 3. To provide students, faculty and other practitioners a knowledge base to download and share presentations (PPT), abstracts, and extended abstracts of the papers presented at various conventions. 4. Disseminate information relating to the EMPIDLNC-2007, including on line facilities for Registration, Booking Accommodation, Programmes and Schedules of the Convention etc. etc. It may be recalled, that recently, Knowledge & Learning Resource Centre, Central Library, EMPI Business School, announced its first initiative - the EMPI Digital Library National Convention (EMPI DLNC) - 2007 for promoting digital libraries and associated Technical, Management, Social Processes and emerging issues. The Convention will be held on 18th March to 20th March 2007 at India International Centre under the venerable leadership of Dr. Muttayya Koganuramath, President, Indian Library Association . The EMPIDLNC-2007 is proposed with a view to provide a unique platform to the eminent Knowledge and Learning Resource Centers professionals and practitioners in search of and to share the innovative ideas, work space problems and their solutions (case studies), modern library technical and management processes and practices, opportunities and challenges in managing people and digital resources, and servicing aspects of the upgraded Knowledge and Learning Resource Centers Dr. Shailendra Kumar, Department of Library & Information Science, Delhi University & National Advisory Board Member, EMPI Digital Library National Convention 2007 launched the Convention¢s Official Website http://www.empidlnc.org. on Wednesday, 29th November, 2006, at the premises of the EMPI Business School¢s Knowledge & Learning Resource Centre. Mr. Gurnam Saran, President, EMPI Group of Institutions, Mrs. Rumma Sharma, Deputy Director (Library), CME, AIMA, New Delhi & Members of the Organizing Board were the prominent dignitaries at the inaugural function. Later, Dr. Shailendra Kumar read, at the EMPIs R&D Conference Room No. 2, his paper on "Dynamics of Information from the Village to the Research Laboratory." The paper was illuminating and thought provoking for all who are interested in reducing 'the Digital Divide' between the Rural and Urban populations, the Illiterate and the Academicians. The prime objectives of launching the website http://www.empidlnc.org are 1. EMPI Knowledge and Resource Center's continuing efforts of promoting & shaping the Digital Library concepts and practices in India, 2. To share and contribute the best expertise about implementing, governing and regulating Digital Library processes and practices, and make a platform to announce various EMPI training and educational activities on developing Modern Knowledge & Learning Resource Centres. 3. To provide students, faculty and other practitioners a knowledge base to download and share presentations (PPT), abstracts, and extended abstracts of the papers presented at various conventions. 4. Disseminate information relating to the EMPIDLNC-2007, including on line facilities for Registration, Booking Accommodation, Programmes and Schedules of the Convention etc. etc. It may be recalled, that recently, Knowledge & Learning Resource Centre, Central Library, EMPI Business School, announced its first initiative - the EMPI Digital Library National Convention (EMPI DLNC) - 2007 for promoting digital libraries and associated Technical, Management, Social Processes and emerging issues. The Convention will be held on 18th March to 20th March 2007 at India International Centre under the venerable leadership of Dr. Muttayya Koganuramath, President, Indian Library Association. The EMPIDLNC-2007 is proposed with a view to provide a unique platform to the eminent Knowledge and Learning Resource Centers professionals and practitioners in search of and to share the innovative ideas, work space problems and their solutions (case studies), modern library technical and management processes and practices, opportunities and challenges in managing people and digital resources, and servicing aspects of the upgraded Knowledge and Learning Resource Centers

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Condolences from the INFLIBNET Staff
by Suresh Chauhan 01 Dec '06

01 Dec '06

Dear All, It is really very shocking to know about the demise of Prof. Veena Saraf. She was one of the brilliant LIS professionals of this country. She was well associated with the INFLIBNET and its activities since very beginning. Her sad demise has created a vacuum which can not be filled up in future. The condolences from the INFLIBNET Staff for her bereaved Family and pray for resting her soul in peace. Suresh Dear All, It is really very shocking to know about the demise of Prof. Veena Saraf. She was one of the brilliant LIS professionals of this country. She was well associated with the INFLIBNET and its activities since very beginning. Her sad demise has created a vacuum which can not be filled up in future. The condolences from the INFLIBNET Staff for her bereaved Family and pray for resting her soul in peace. Suresh

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An alliance for taxpayer access in India
by Subbiah Arunachalam 01 Dec '06

01 Dec '06

>From Biobytes, Vol. 1, 18 December 2006 [http://biobytes.bicmku.in/] A Perspective on Open Access Publishing Subbiah Arunachalam Email: arun(a)mssrf.res.in Much of research in India in the fields of science, technology, agriculture, medicine, social sciences, economics, etc. is funded out of taxpayers' money. A few years ago, a DST report quoted a figure of about 75% for the share of publicly funded scientific research. However, the findings of these research programmes, usually in the form of research papers published in refereed journals, are not easily accessible even to Indian scientists at large let alone the public, for the simple reason scientists publish their research papers in a wide variety of journals published from many countries and no library in India or for that matter anywhere in the world can afford to subscribe to all these journals. Also, some journal publishers fix their subscription prices at astronomical levels. As a consequence research published by scientists at the Tuberculosis Research Centre in Chennai, which would be of great relevance to researchers say in a university in Maharashtra, may not be even noticed by the university scientists. Both groups receive funds from the same source, viz. the Indian Government, and yet what one does is not easily accessible to the other. What is more it need not be. The authors at the Tuberculosis research Institute may publish their papers in any journal they want to. But if, at the same time, they also place the papers in an interoperable institutional open access archive (or repository) anyone with an Internet connection can access it. This is precisely why enlightened institutions such as the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian Institute of Science are subscribing to the idea of open access. All eleven Academy journals are open access. Anyone anywhere in the world can access any paper published in these journals - full text and not just abstracts - through the Internet. The Indian Institute of Science is maintaining an open access repository of full text papers and they are on their way to placing every paper published by the IISc faculty and students in this repository. Currently they have more than 5,000 papers. CERN, the Centre for Nuclear research in Geneva has placed more than 75,000 papers in its repository. Many Indian physicists have been placing their research papers - both preprints and postprints - in an international repository called arXiv. But a vast majority of Indian scientists are not making their papers available via open access. What can we the common people, the taxpaying public, do? Well in the USA they have an organization called the Alliance for Taxpayer Access; please see http://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:5584.334940148/rid:24ef8cfe5… for details. They have over 75 institutional members and they are fighting for open access to all publicly funded research. Through their advocacy, the Alliance members hope to change not only the US policy but also the attitude and behaviour of individual scientists. Enlightened Indians in all walks of life could form a national organization similar to the US Alliance for Taxpayer Access and persuade the government to mandate open access all research publications resulting from public funding. The Alliance could write to major funding agencies and apex bodies (such as DST, DSIR, ICAR, ICMR, DAE, DRDO, Dept of Space, Department of Ocean Development, UGC, etc.), the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and the science academies and professional societies urging them to adopt a comprehensive open access policy in India. In the US a bill is at an advanced stage of discussion in the Congress and in the UK six of the eight Research Councils have already announced their support to open access. The Wellcome Trust, one of the largest funders of life science research, has mandated OA for all papers resulting from their support. Surely we in India can open up the scientific and scholarly literature. Subbiah Arunachalam ---------------------- The presentations made at the workshop on electronic publishing and open access: developing country perspectives, Bangalore, 2-3 November 2006, are now available at <www.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/OAworkshop2006/>. ___________________________________________________________ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com

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