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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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