South Africa
The Electronic Communication Act No. 36 of 2005 recently came into
effect. It provides for discounted rates for public schools and public
further education and training institutions. It, however, does not
extend to universities or libraries.
See Clause 73 below :-
E-rate
73. (1) Internet services, provided to all public schools as defined in the South African
Schools Act, 1996 (Act No. 84 of 1996), and all public further education and training
institutions as defined in the Further Education and Training Act, 1998 (Act No. 98 of
1998), must be provided at a minimum discounted rate of 50% off the total charge levied
by the licensee providing Internet services to such institutions.
(2) The discount is applicable of the total charge levied by the licensee which includes
but is not limited to the following:
(a) Any connectivity charges for access to the Internet;
(b) charges for any equipment used for or in association with connectivity to the
Internet; and
(c) all calls made to an Internet Service Provider.
(3) Where the licensee, who provides Internet services to the
institutions as contemplated in subsection (1), obtains its electronic communications
facilities for the provision of Internet services from a electronic communications network
service licensee, the licensee is entitled to a minimum of 50% off the retail
rate charged to it by the electronic communications network service licensee for the
facilities in question.
(4) The implementation of this section must be in the manner
prescribed.
(5) The Minister may, in consultation with the Minister responsible for
Education,declare categories of independent schools or private further education
and training institutions to be entitled to the discount mentioned in subsection
(1).
The implementation of the section will probably only take place during
2007.
Empowering libraries through Open Source solutions: launch of eIFL OSS program
PRESS RELEASE
November 7, 2006
eIFL Open Source Software kick-off meeting Cupramontana, Italy, 29-30 October 2006
On 29-30 October 2006, eIFL.net hosted an international gathering of software developers, information access advocates and library representatives at the picturesque
monastery of Eremo delle Grotte dei Frati Bianchi in the eastern Italian province of Ancona. Welcomed by the Mayor of Cupramontana to "create a new beginning in a place of quiet reflection", the purpose was to launch a new eIFL.net program to foster the use of Open Source Software (OSS) solutions for libraries.
"Open Source is all about empowerment", said Art Rhyno, a Systems Librarian at the University of Windsor and author of a book on OSS and a report for eIFL in 2005. "This is not about dropping packaged solutions into resource poor regions, this is about giving people the tools and training to create their own solutions at the local level", continued Rhyno. An immediate area of focus is the Integrated Library System (ILS), typically the biggest technology expense in a library budget and identified by eIFL members as a priority for new solutions. "The ILS is a huge drain on a library's
resources", said Tigran Zargaryan, eIFL country representative for Armenia and Head of the Automation Department at Yerevan State University Library. "More flexible options for ILS will go a long way towards enabling libraries in eIFL countries to offer more services and make a greater impact on the communities they serve".
Erik Hatcher, author and a leading developer on Lucene, one of the world's premier search engine technologies, attended the Cupramontana meeting. "OSS represents the
state-of-the-art in Information Retrieval(IR) systems", said Hatcher. "Libraries can put together systems in ways that were not possible before and the use of Open Source by libraries represents a perfect partnership of software and organisations that serve the common good", he continued. Marek Tuszynski, co-founder and partner of Tactical Technical Collective (TTC), best captured the spirit of the eIFL initiative in describing how TTC distribute Open Source Software in packaged CD collections and organise regional training workshops for non-profits in developing and transition countries. It is envisaged that eIFL will model its OSS activities on the innovative and successful approaches developed by TTC.
The first step is to finalise membership of an eIFL OSS Advisory Board. This will be taken forward by Tigran Zargaryan and Bess Sadler, a librarian and software developer for the University of Virginia library, who will prepare revised Terms of Reference and will work with eIFL to identify potential partners. Sadler, who has worked as an international observer and has experience developing software and technical solutions for indigenous groups in Canada and Latin America, points to the historical role of libraries as a source of knowledge and empowerment. "Access to information is vital for any kind of positive change in society. Libraries do a good job of ensuring this access. Our role is to support libraries in eIFL member countries, so that a lack of financial resources need not mean a lack of available knowledge."
Further information:
Rima Kupryte, Director
Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL) c/o ADN Kronos,
Piazza Mastai 9
00153 Rome, Italy
Tel: +(39)(06)5807216/17
E-mail: rima.kupryte@eifl.net
html: www.eifl.net
eIFL
eIFL.net is an international foundation which supports national library consortia in fifty transition and developing countries to negotiate and advocate for the wide availability of electronic resources to education, research and professional communities as well as governmental organisations and civil society. This global network embraces
millions of users in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.
--
Read about eIFL in wikipedia!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Electronic_Information_for_Libraries
Internet Coalition to Promote Access to Knowledge and Online Free Speech
Civil Society, Govt, Business, & Academia Join Together to Form "A2K@IGF"
IP Justice Media Release
1 November 2006
(Athens) A broad range of companies, civil society organizations,
governments, and academics have joined together to form a "dynamic
coalition" to promote online freedom of expression and access to knowledge
at the inaugural meeting of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum IGF
in Athens.
One of the main "deliverables" of the IGF meeting is the creation of dynamic
coalitions, or multi-stakeholder groups working together over a multi-year
process to provide recommendations for "best practices" on particular issues
that deal with online activity.
On Wednesday, November 1st at IGF in Athens, a number of the organizers of
the IGF workshop on freedom of expression and access to knowledge held a
press conference to announce the creation of a dynamic coalition.
The coalition will work towards promoting the Internet as a tool of
development, education and freedom, and will focus on the proper balance for
intellectual property rights in a digital world.
Among others, founding members of the IGF dynamic coalition include IP
Justice, Google, Council of Europe, CPTech, Sun Microsystems, Bibliotheca
Alexandrina, Yale Law School Information Society Project, Free Software
Foundation Europe, Franklin Pierce Law School, Electronic Information for
Libraries (eIFL), Electronic Frontier Foundation, Computer Professionals for
Social Responsibility (CPSR) and the IP Academy of Singapore. The coalition
will report back at the 2007 IGF in Rio de Janeiro on its progress.
Details on the workshop and press conference speakers are below.
IGF Workshop on Free Expression and A2k:
"Harnessing the Power of the Internet to Provide Access to Knowledge & Free
Flow of Information": A workshop to explore significant opportunities and
barriers to harnessing the power of the Internet to provide access to
knowledge and encourage freedom of expression and the free flow of
information. In particular, the workshop will focus on the appropriate
balance for intellectual property rights on the Internet and their impact on
free speech and access to knowledge.
Workshop Speakers:
- Susan Struble from IT Standardization and Strategy at Sun Microsystems
will address challenges to technical interoperability and the free flow of
information on the Internet from software patents.
- Dr. Magdy Nagi from Egypt's Library of Alexandria (Bibliotheca
Alexandrina) will discuss the needs of online libraries to provide access to
information and encourage development.
- Dirk Voorhoof a Professor at Ghent University and Copenhagen University,
member of Legal Human Academy and expert of the Council of Europe will
discuss international human rights conventions and their relationship to
intellectual property law, access to knowledge, and freedom of expression.
- Mary Wong, a Professor of Law at Franklin Pierce Law Center and the IP
Academy of Singapore will address special online challenges to freedom of
expression and access to knowledge from "digital locks".
- Cristiano Berbert from the government of Brazil will discuss efforts in
the developing countries to provide access to knowledge and promote free
expression.
- Andrew McLaughlin, Head of Global Public Policy at Google will address the
barriers Google faces in providing access to knowledge from unbalanced
copyright law.
- Robin Gross, Executive Director of IP Justice will Chair the session.
Webpage for workshop:
http://ipjustice.org/wp/campaigns/internet-governance/igf/382/
Workshop Sponsors:
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Computer Professionals for
Social Responsibility - Peru Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech) Egypt's
Library of Alexandria (Bibliotheca Alexandrina) Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL) Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE) Google International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions (IFLA) IP Justice (IPJ) South Centre
Innovation, Access to Knowledge and Intellectual Property Programme (IAIPP)
Sun Microsystems Third World Network (TWN)
DEVELOPING WORLD TO RECEIVE ACCESS TO CRITICAL GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
For Immediate Release: October 30, 2006 (9:00 AM) UNEP-YALE
"Online Access to Research in the Environment" (OARE)
NEW YORK CITY/NAIROBI, - In an effort to help reduce great
disparities in scientific capital between developed and
developing nations, the United Nations Environment Programme
UNEP), Yale University, and leading science and technology
ublishers launched today a new collaborative initiative to
make global scientific research in the environmental sciences
available online to tens of thousands of environmental
scientists, researchers, and policy makers in the developing
world for free or at nominal cost.
Through Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE),
more than 200 prestigious publishers, societies and
associations will offer one of the world's largest
collections of scholarly, peer-reviewed environmental science
journals to over 1200 public and non-profit environmental
institutions in more than 100 developing nations of Africa,
Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and
Eastern Europe. Each and every institution enrolled in OARE
will receive resources with an annual retail subscription
value in the many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Over 1000 scholarly scientific and technical journal titles
in such fields as biotechnology, botany, climate change,
ecology, energy, environmental chemistry, environmental
economics, environmental engineering and planning,
environmental law and policy, environmental toxicology and
pollution, geography, geology, hydrology, meteorology,
oceanography, urban planning, and zoology will be provided
through a portal presented in English, Spanish and French.
OARE will also provide important Abstract and Index Research
Databases (A&I Databases) -- intellectual tools the
scientific and professional community use to search for
information within thousands of scholarly publications, and
other scholarly resources.
"OARE is a new and inspiring example of international
cooperation that can contribute to the reduction of the
North-South scientific gap and digital divide, objectives
that are both at the top of the UN agenda and the UN
Millennium Development Goals", said Achim Steiner, United
Nations Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director.
"Thanks to advances in information and communication
technologies and the great generosity of many leading
scientific publishers, we have an unprecedented opportunity
to provide environmental institutions in developing countries
with intellectual resources we in the developed world so
often take for granted", said James Gustave Speth, dean of
Yale's Environment School.
"Scientific publishers welcome this opportunity to provide
access to the latest published research in environmental and
related sciences to researchers and other professionals in
106 developing countries, in the expectation that, in turn,
higher quality research will emerge from those countries, to
the benefit of all of us", said Michael Mabe, CEO of the
International Association of Scientific, Technical and
Medical Publishers (STM).
"The Hewlett Foundation is committed to providing high
quality educational materials to students and scholars in the
developing world. We are extremely pleased to join with Yale,
UNEP and the many participating publishers, societies and
associations to make scientific resources available in
developing countries, where the need is so great.", stated
Paul Brest, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
OARE aims to contribute to the development of expert
professional and academic communities and an informed public;
encourage scientific creativity and productivity; facilitate
the development of progressive science-based national
policies; help enable countries to build their own higher
education programs in the environmental sciences; educate
their own leaders; conduct their own research; publish their
own scientific findings; and disseminate information to
policy makers and the public.
Organizations providing scientific content through OARE
include leading scientific publishers (e.g. Annual Reviews,
Blackwell, Cambridge, Elsevier, John Wiley, Nature Publishing
Group, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Oxford and many others)
and more than 200 scientific societies and associations (e.g.
Académie des Sciences de France, American Association for the
Advancement of Science, National Academy of Sciences, Nordic
Society OIKOS, Oceanographic Society of Japan, Real Sociedad
Espaniola de Qimica, Royal Geographical Society, Royal
Meteorological Society of Great Britain, Societa Botanica
Italiana, Zoological Society of London, etc). A complete
listing of collaborating institutions is available at
www.oaresciences.org.
Eligible institutions include universities and colleges,
research institutes, ministries of the environment and other
government agencies, libraries, and national NGOs. Access for
institutions in the 70 poorest countries will be free. Access
for institutions in 38 lower middle income countries will be
at a nominal charge, which will be reinvested to support
continued training and outreach activities in eligible countries.
OARE will be coordinated by UNEP and Yale University in
association with STM and 30 leading science and technology
publishing houses. Support is provided by the William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation. OARE will be managed in close
cooperation with the Health Internetwork Access to Research
Initiative (HINARI), launched by the World Health
Organization (WHO) in 2001 to provide research to the medical
community in developing nations, and Access to Global Online
Research in Agriculture (AGORA), launched by the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Cornell University in 2003
to provide research to the agricultural community.
For more information, please visit the newly launched OARE
website at www.oaresciences.org. The official launch event
will be held today in New York City, 4:30PM, at The
University Club, One West 54th Street. Press are welcome.
OARE coordinators can be contacted directly:
Serge Bounda, serge.bounda@unep.org, (254-20) 762-3105 Paul
Walberg, paul.walberg@yale.edu, (1-203) 214-2968 Kim Parker,
kimberly.parker@yale.edu, (1-203) 432-0067
*NEW SERVICE IN THE DIRECTORY OF OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS*
For Immediate Release October 14, 2006
Lund, Sweden - It is with great pleasure that we today can announce the
launch of "For Authors Service" in the Directory of Open Access Journals
(DOAJ, http://www.doaj.org <http://www.doaj.org/>
<http://www.doaj.org/> ). The service is a look up service for authors
who wants to publish their research as open access.
As of today researchers can find information about the "pure" OA
journals from DOAJ and about the "hybrid" journals that for a fee allow
the authors to publish their research as OA in an otherwise subscription
based journal. For a closer look at the new service go to
http://www.doaj.org <http://www.doaj.org/> http://www.doaj.org/> and
choose "For authors" in the menu.
We are aware that we don't have the "author pays" information for all
journal titles we are working on collecting this information and if
anyone has information about a journal we appreciate if you share it
with us.
The goal of the Directory of Open Access Journals is still to increase
the visibility and accessibility of open access scholarly journals, and
thereby promote their increased usage and impact. The directory aims to
comprehensively cover all open access scholarly journals that use an
appropriate quality control system. Journals in all languages and
subject
areas will be included in the DOAJ. The selection criteria have been
updated based on feedback from users to be more understandable
(http://www.doaj.org/articles/about#criteria ).
The database records are freely available for reuse in library
catalogues and other services and can be harvested by using the OAI-PMH
(http://www.openarchives.org <http://www.openarchives.org/>
<http://www.openarchives.org/> ), and thereby increase the visibility of
the open access journals.
DOAJ is or has been supported by the Information Program of the Open
Society Institute (http://www.osi.hu/infoprogram/), along with SPARC
(The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition),
(http://www.arl.org/sparc) SPARC Europe, (http://www.sparceurope.org/),
BIBSAM, the Royal Library of
Sweden (http://www.kb.se <http://www.kb.se/> ) and Axiell
(http://www.axiell.se/)
If you know of a journal that should be included in the directory, use
this form to report it to the directory: http://www.doaj.org/suggest.
Information about how to obtain DOAJ records for use in a library
catalogue
or other service you will find at:
http://www.doaj.org/articles/questions#metadata .
Thank you for your interest and support!
Lotte Jorgensen
Lars Bjornshauge
Lotte Jorgensen
Lund University Libraries, Head Office
P.O.Box 134, SE-221 00 LUND, Sweden
Visiting address Tornavägen 9B, Lund
Tel: ? 46-222 34 31
Fax: ? 46-222 36 82
E-mail: lotte.jorgensen@lub.lu.se
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