[BOAI] Fwd: ***Press Release*** Welsh Repository Network (WRN) launch

[Peter Suber]

[Forwarding from the WRN project, via the AmSci OA Forum.  --Peter Suber.]


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Hannah Elizabeth Payne [hep] <hep -- <http://aber.ac.uk>aber.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 7:15 AM
Subject: ***Press Release*** Welsh Repository Network (WRN) launch
To: <mailto:JISC-REPOSITORIES at jiscmail.ac.uk>JISC-REPOSITORIES at jiscmail.ac.uk


***Press Release***

Welsh Repository Network (WRN) launch

The Welsh Repository Network (WRN), a network of twelve institutional 
repositories within each of the higher education institutions (HEI) within 
Wales, was launched at the National Library of Wales on Thursday 19th 
February, 2009. The launch celebrated the success of the WRN Project; a 
project funded by the JISC in association with the Wales Higher Education 
Library Forum (WHELF), to provide each HEI in Wales with the resources and 
support needed to establish and operate effective, individual institutional 
repositories. Each HEI was provided with funding to purchase repository 
hardware or to purchase a hosted repository system, along with support and 
assistance via the Welsh arm of the Repositories Support Project (RSP) 
based at Aberystwyth University.

The WRN launch celebrated the fact that the principality of Wales now has 
100% coverage with respect to universities and repositories. This will 
allow the universities in Wales to not only preserve and protect their 
research, but also make available cutting edge research to the world, 
enabling more open dissemination of the ground breaking and world leading 
research undertaken across Wales through the Open Access movement.

A further deliverable of the project is the production of a suite of twelve 
case studies, documenting the hardware purchases of each institution 
(available from 
<http://hdl.handle.net/2160/1881>http://hdl.handle.net/2160/1881). As the 
HEIs in Wales are diverse in size and type, ranging from large research-led 
institutions to smaller liberal arts or specialist institutions, a variety 
of hardware and software solutions were required to fit with their existing 
infrastructures. It was hoped that creating these case studies would assist 
other universities to allow them to compare their profile with a case study 
of an institution with a similar background and infrastructure plan, and to 
gauge their hardware needs for repository support accordingly.

The WRN helps to address the Welsh Assembly Government's Reaching Higher 
objectives in respect of improving institutional efficiency, increasing 
capacity and encouraging collaboration, but also helps to make a 
significant contribution to the overall aims and objectives of the JISC 
Repositories and Preservation Programme.

The following article, containing further details of the WRN project is 
available from: 
<http://hdl.handle.net/2160/1882>http://hdl.handle.net/2160/1882.

Lewis, S. and Payne, H. (2009). How the West was won: Providing 
repositories across the principality of Wales. ALISS Quarterly. 4(2), 18-22.

WRN Project website: 
<http://whelf.ac.uk/wrn/index.shtml>http://whelf.ac.uk/wrn/index.shtml

Hannah Payne
Project Officer (Organisational)
Repositories Support Project
Aberystwyth University
01970 628490
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