A new article and a new service of interest to developing countries

Libraries and ‘the Depot’ helping access for developing countries

## An interesting article titled, ‘Be Creative, Determined, and Wise: Open Library Publishing and the Global South’ discusses the many issues affecting access to information by developing countries. Matthew Baker, in a feature article in Information Today, discusses how libraries can address the problems facing the ‘information divide’ - internet infrastructure, language, political/economic instability, cultural factors, censorship . . . Matthew Baker says: “As libraries continue to work on opening access to scientific and scholarly research, and as they assume more and more the roles, responsibilities, and capacities of publication, they are strategically placed to help significantly reduce the global digital information divide. There is much work to be done. By keeping the important ethical and social justice priorities of the open access movement at the heart of the evolving publication roles of libraries, we can bring the best instincts and practices of libraries to bear on this important issue. Librarians know this about OA. We love it. It gets us all fired up.” See here.

## No institutional repository? No worry. Authors from any country in the world can now deposit their published articles in the ‘DEPOT’ service. Previously restricted to the UK, all authors can now benefit from open access visibility straight away. If they later want to return their articles to their own IR, then that can be done.

Based at the University of Edinburgh and supported by JISC, the Depot explains that it provides two main services:
• a deposit service for researchers worldwide without an institutional repository in which to deposit their papers, articles, and book chapters (e-prints).
• a re-direct service which alerts depositors to more appropriate local services if they exist.
“The first time a researcher visits the Depot we will automatically check with OpenDOAR, the registry for open access repositories, to find a more appropriate local repository. If none exists then the author will be invited to deposit their research in the Depot. The Depot is OAI-compliant allowing deposited e-prints to be 'harvested' by search services, and other repositories, giving them instant global visibility.”

So don’t wait for your institute to set up its own repository – let everyone have access to your publications now, go deposit in the Depot! [But your institute should have its own IR too as it is getting left behind – now over 1500 have been set up around the world - and there are so many institutional benefits to be gained.]