Re: [LIS-Forum] OA thriving in Europe

18 Sep 2006

      I wonder if in next few years to come - some people - will also give
the same reason (Mr Tariq's) for not having libraries and librarians
at all...!!!

Why to spend so much on Libraries by subscribing to foreign journals
and books when size-able number of Indian citizens live below poverty
line?.

Not to speak of Meerut - even Delhi had a very bad season this year
terms of Power supply. What should be then done? Stop all our
modernisation programmes? Go back in stone age?

I was in IGNOU in 1988. We were thinking of having OPAC. However some
of our library staff members were afraid of power failures. This could
collapse the whole library functioning. But we went ahead. Later we
came to know about the  solution - UPS. I know it would sound crazy
talking about these now.

OK, Come on - one present day incidence. I am in a (ORKUT) discussion
forum  of students of anthropology. Do you know what senior students
are advising their juniors -- BE NET SAVVY and don't be LIBRARY WORM.
Well we can always challenge their wisdom. But can we change their
perception. Any business person knows - it is not the product but the
consumers' perception that all matters. These are some warning signs -
so BEWARE!!
Know the perception of our consumers.

Open Access does not add to the library or the country's budget. It
only lighten it? Anybody believing in the soul of First Law of Library
Science - can not be opposed to Open Access.

I wonder, if anyone of us not purchasing  a PC for his/her high school
kids because there is no regular power supply. Then why deprive your
library users?

CHANGE IS CONSTANT --SURVIVE OR GET EXTINCT.

--Sukhdev Singh.
...
...
Towns like Meerut,
Moradabad, Muzaffar Nagar which
are hardly 100 Kmeterws away from Delhi do not get
power for more than 4- to
6 hours per day. We need to integrate our IT efforts
with overall economic
development and adopt a holistic approach.Merely
accusing librarians will
not do any thing except straining precious
bandwidth......I hope some of you
agree.
On 15/09/06, Subbiah Arunachalam  wrote:
...
Friends:
Thanks very much to Mr Tariq Ashraf for his response
to my earlier intervention.
No one ever achieves anything by finding reasons why
things don't or cannot work. When telephones were a
luxury in India and getting a telephone connection
took years of waiting, a man called Sam Pitroda came
from Chicago and changed all that by looking at the
problem innovatively. Suddenly cities, towns and
villages were flush with STD and ISDN booths and even
poor people could call their relatives living in
distant lands. A few years before Mr Pitroda came on
the scene, there was a dapper little man called
Varghese Kurien who came to Gujarat all the way from
his native Kerala and looked at farmers getting below
optimal returns on their investments on cows and
buffalos and he brought them all under the umbrella of
a cooperative called Amul and brought great cheer to
all of them. Not many people know he was perhaps the
first man to introduce modern ICT tools to rural
India. Under his leadership Amul introduced a system
which would automatically measure the volume, density
(for fat content) of milk brought by a farmer, keep a
running account so that payments could be made once a
month depending on both the volume and the quality of
the milk. Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, Ratan Tata,
Ramadorai and others like them live and work in India
and have transformed this country (with poor supply of
electricity as Mr Ashraf characterises it) into an IT
super power.
Yes, we need to produce far more electricity (and
clean energy in general) than we do now. But to say
that all else should wait till we do that is naive.
While some of us should work on improving
infrastructre and facilities, there is no harm if
others try to improve our research capabilities, our
ability to access and use information, etc.
It is not a question of "either or". We need to do
both. I fully agree development should be holistic.
Those of you who have read my writings on the MSSRF
programme of ICT-enabled development (the Information
Villages, Knowledge Centres, National Virtual Academy,
Mission 2007, etc.) will know how strongly I advocate
holistic development.
Today about a hundred Indian journals are open access
journals. There are about 30 open archives (possibly
more) and these are located not only in large cities
like Bangalore, New Delhi and Pune but also in smaller
towns like Rourkela. And I guess - and correct me if I
am wrong - that even in Meerut, Moradabad and Muzaffar
Nagar, people use Internet, send emails and go to
cyber cafes, never mind they have electricity only for
six (or whatever nuumber of) hours a day. And if a
scientist or scholar needs to access a document he/she
can still do so within those few hours if the document
is on open access.
And Dr D K Sahu of MedKnow Publications has shown the
tremendous benefits of journals going open access. Ms
Naina Pandita, Sukhdev and colleagues at NIC thought
really big: When they set up an archive for biomedical
resaerch, they did not want to confine the archive
(OpenMED) to only papers from India; they welcomed
papes from everywhere. Mr N V Satyanarayana, a
Bangalore-based businessman set up a search portal
called Open J-Gate for OA papers, which can be used by
anyone from any corner of the world. Dr M G Sreekumar
of IIMK not only set up an archive but also conducts
workshops on setting up archives, use of Greenstone,
etc. Dr A R D Prasad of DRTC has won international
recognition for his tireless promotion of the culture
of OA and in particular the application of DSpace. Dr
Shalini Urs has set up a repository for doctoral (and
Masters) theses. Dr V Balaji of ICRISAT is active in
promoting OA among agricultural universities and
research centres not only in India but also worldwide.
Two days ago Arun Shourie wrote in Indian Express how
we are missing the great opportunity to become the
higher education hub of the world.
But as Dr S Krishnan of NCL, Pune, points out it is
not enough if librarians take interest in promoting
OA. Unless scientists and scholars who produce all the
research in universities and research labs take
interest in uploading their papers in institutional or
central archives we cannot ensure long term
sustainability of the OA movement.
Mr Tariq Ashraf says: "Merely accusing librarians will
not do any thing except straining precious bandwidth."
I have not accused librarians (or for that matter
anyone else). In fact I have not even used the word
'librarian'. All I am doing is to exhort developing
country scientists to adopt open access without any
further delay.
There is indeed nothing to be amazed about. On the
contrary all of us should be greatly concerned about
the slow pace of OA in India and other developing
countries.
Arun
[Subbiah Arunachalam]
--- tariq22@gmail.com wrote:
...
is it not little amazing to say that countries in
South Asia are reluctant
to go for open access.There are several ambitious
projects launched both at
governmental and non governmental level for open
archiving.But things take
their own time  in countries like ours where even
basic infrastructural
arrangements are missing. Towns like Meerut,
Moradabad, Muzaffar Nagar which
are hardly 100 Kmeterws away from Delhi do not get
power for more than 4- to
6 hours per day. We need to integrate our IT efforts
with overall economic
development and adopt a holistic approach.Merely
accusing librarians will
not do any thing except straining precious
bandwidth......I hope some of you
agree.
Dr.Tariq  Ashraf
Deputy Librarian
University of Delhi-Delhi-110007
Ph: 27662040 (Direct) 27667725/ 1676
Mobile: 9868335593 Email: tariq22@gmail.com
On 9/14/06, Subbiah Arunachalam
 wrote:
...
Beyond DRIVER to EDRI
EU project to widen access to European research
information, September 13, 2006.  The CORDIS
announcement of the DRIVER project.  (See DRIVER's
...
announcement on Monday.)  Excerpt:
A new EU-funded project will lay the
foundations
of a large-scale, pan-European public
infrastructure
for research information.
Open-access to research information is vital
for
researchers. The long-term vision of the DRIVER
(Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for
European
Research) project is to create an knowledge
infrastructure for European researchers, which
could
include any form of scientific resource, from
reports,
to research articles, to raw data to other media.
A number of countries and institutions already
have repositories and networks which bring
together a
wide range of research content. A good example of
...
is the DARE Network in the Netherlands. Launched
in
2004, DARE networks the digital data collections
of
all Dutch universities, as well as several related
institutions, and allows users to access the
information, which is arranged consistently. To
date,
DARE provides access to more than 75,000 digital
records. The organisation behind DARE, SURF (the
Dutch
higher education and research partnership
organisation
which networks services, information and
communications technology), is a partner in the
DRIVER
project.
In a similar way, the European Digital
Repository
Infrastructure will eventually be a virtual
network of
repositories from across Europe. Initially, the
project will focus on linking 51 institutional
repositories from the Netherlands, UK, Germany,
France
and Belgium. This early 'test-bed' version of the
European Repository will offer users a number of
services, such as search, data collection,
own
this
profiling
...
and recommendations....
Ultimately, the project partners hope their
virtual repository will build up a critical mass
of
research materials which will represent a powerful
demonstration of Europe's research output.
----
Why are countries in the South reluctant to
embrace
the culture of open access, even though they stand
to
benefit much more than the European countries? Is
it
because our scientists and schoalars are not aware
of
the tremendous benefits of OA or is it because our
science leaders do not see the value of OA?
Arun
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...
--
Dr.Tariq  Ashraf
Deputy Librarian
University of Delhi-Delhi (India )110007
email: tariq22@gmail.com ; Ph: 011-27662040 (Direct)
011-27667725-Ext 1676
Website: http://www.du.ac.in
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