Bioline International: A UTL Partnership Project in Open Access

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Bioline International A UTL Partnership Project
in Open Access

• Leslie Chan
• Jen Sweezie
• May 9, 2005

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Outline

• What is Bioline International - Goals,
  objectives,
• Broader Context - U of T and beyond
• Partnership with UTL
• Operational aspects
• Achievements so far
• Some observations about knowledge transfer and
  resource sharing

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(No Transcript)
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Acknowledgements

• CRIA Centro de Referência em Informação
  Ambiental (Campanis, Brazil) www.cria.org.br
• (Reference Center for Environmental
  Information)
• Sidnei de Souza, Vanderlai Canhos, Dora Canhos
• U of Toronto Libraries, Carol Moore, Jenny
  Mendelsohn, Marla Miller
• Department of Social Sciences, UTSC
• Principals Office, UTSC
• Student workers and volunteers

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What is Bioline International?

• Electronic aggregator of full text journals from
  developing countries
• OAI data provider
• Development project - what do readers and authors
  want?
• Aims to influence scholarly communication
  practices and access to research literature
• Will open access improve the visibility and
  impact of journals from developing countries?

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Why Bioline International?

• Publications from developing countries are poorly
  represented in the big deal
• Perceived quality of journals from DCs
• Bridging the South-North knowledge gap
• Better understanding of global science

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Features

• Biolib-l listserv for content alert
• News Blog
• Species link
• OAI-compliance
• Long term preservation
• Usage statistics
• Citation impact

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Partnership with UTL

• Creative partnership in the provision,
  distribution and preservation of scholarship
• 48 open access titles on UTLs e-resource list in
  multiple languages
• TSpace for mirroring content

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Broader Context - U of T and beyond

• Tie in with the Ptolemy Project and other
  International health projects at U of T
• OSOA at U of T
• International Studies program at UTSC
• Co-op program at UTSC

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OS OA U of T
½ M Project supported by an award to KMDI from
the Provosts Academic Initiatives Fund
open.utoronto.ca
OS
OA
Webcasting Archives
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Broader Context - U of T and beyond

• Open access crosses all borders
• The Bioline International project
  receives attention feedback from scholars
  worldwide
• Canadians working in other countries
• North American researchers needing copies of
  their own work
• Librarians in developing countries with limited
  access to material published even close to them

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Broader Context - U of T and beyond

• Regionally-based health and agricultural / plant
  science information
• Some North American libraries having to cancel
  these titles for shelf-space, lack of readership
  but lose the valuable plant science
  agricultural information not available from
  mainstream journals, as geographically based
• Medical information on regional problems,
  particularly diseases such as malaria, Dengue
  fever, HIV/AIDS

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Broader Context - U of T and beyond

• Employment opportunities for U of T students
• 2 students working part time
• 1 computer science programmer
• 1 co-op student
• Potential space for more student workers
• Project coordinated by FIS masters student

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Operational aspects

• Powered by hard working U of T Students!
• Web presence powered by open source software
• Custom written backend for Bioline website
• Plone management system
• E-Prints repository for PDFs
• All international correspondence via email WWW

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OAI Harvester
EPrint Website
CRIA Website
Species 2000
OAI Harvester
DSMZ
PDF fullpaper
PDF Full Paper Repository
abstract
fullpaper
HTML Full Paper Repository
UT Documents tagging and formatting
Species Names Database
OAI Harvester
Bioline Website
Abstracts Repository (XML)
Abstracts Database
OAI Harvester
Controler Database
OAI Harvester
XML Config Files
Aux Files (XML/HTML)
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Operational aspects
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Operational aspects
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Operational aspects
FILES GATHERED / CREATED
NEW ISSUE PUBLISHED
IMAGE CONVERSION
ARTICLE CONVERSION
FINAL TOUCHES CHECKING FOR ACCURACY
UPLOAD CHECK
EPrints ARCHIVING
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Achievements so far

• Featured in various article e.g. "Open Archives
  Initiative Data Providers. Part II Science and
  Technology," Library Hi Tech News 21, no. 5 (June
  2004) 22-30. 22-30.http//www.public.iastate.edu
  /gerrymck/OAI-DP-II.pdf
• Contacted by Bowker.com to provide information
  about the Bioline databases for Ulrichs Serials
  Directory
• Bioline journals listed in the Directory of Open
  Access Journals (DOAJ) http//www.doaj.org
• Project recommended to journals by officials at
  the WHO
• Bioline E-Prints server included in ISI Current
  Web Contents - http//www.isinet.com/products/cap/
  ccc/cwc/
• Bioline journals included in numerous library
  e-journal e-resource lists

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Upcoming Events Projects

• ElPub 2005 Conference Heverlee, Belgium, June
  8-10
• Open access meetings in China, India and Brazil
• IFLA annual meeting at Oslo
• Bioline CD-ROM using Greenstone software
• UNESCO project on open access directory
• WSIS Phase Two at Tunis

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Some observations on knowledge transfer and
resource sharing

• Science is public knowledge
• Public knowledge means open access to all
• Collaborations between institutions is central to
  the global knowledge commons
• Research libraries have a crucial role to play in
  these processes

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you!