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<font size=3>[Forwarding from CARL and DRIVER. --Peter
Suber.]<br><br>
<br>
*Please excuse any cross-posting*<br><br>
October 23, 2009<br><br>
OTTAWA/GHENT, BELGIUM- On October 21, CARL became a founding member of
the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR). COAR is an
international association of organizations that have a common strategic
interest in open access to scholarly communication. COAR was formed out
of a need to work together at the international level to promote greater
visibility and application of research outputs through global networks of
open access digital repositories.<br><br>
Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has played a leadership
role in the development of open access repositories in Canada. Through
the CARL Institutional Repositories Program, the Association has assisted
its members in setting up repositories on their campuses; and worked with
other research organizations in Canada and internationally in support of
open access. Participation in COAR is a natural extension of these
activities. "We are delighted to announce our membership in
COAR," said Tom Hickerson, chair of the CARL Institutional
Repositories Working Group and Vice-President/President-Elect of CARL.
"COAR membership offers CARL and Canadian research libraries the
opportunity to have a greater influence on the direction and expansion of
open access world-wide".<br><br>
COAR evolved out of a European project called the Digital Repository
Infrastructure Vision for European Research (DRIVER) in consultation with
the international repository community. The Confederation aims to support
the expansion of open access through developing international,
interoperable standards; advocating for open access policies with
research funders and institutions; and working to improve deposit rates
at repositories. Other founding members of COAR are from Europe, Asia,
and the United States. "The collections contained in open access
repositories gain tremendous value when they are part of a larger,
interconnected network," said Norbert Lossau, Scientific
Coordinator of the DRIVER Project. "CARL's membership creates an
important strategic link between Canada and the international
community."<br><br>
COAR was officially launched in Ghent, Belgium during Open Access
Week.<br><br>
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The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) counts as its
members the 28 largest Canadian university libraries and the three major
federal national libraries (Library and Archives Canada, the Canada
Institute for Scientific and Technical Information [CISTI], and the
Library of Parliament). CARL strives to enhance the capacity of Canada's
research libraries to partner in research and higher education, seeking
effective and sustainable scholarly communication and public policy
encouraging of research and broad access to scholarly information.<br>
<a href="http://www.carl-abrc.ca/" eudora="autourl">www.carl-abrc.ca<br>
<br>
</a>DRIVER is a multi-phase effort whose vision and primary objective is
to establish a cohesive, pan-European infrastructure of Digital
Repositories, offering sophisticated functionality services to both
researchers and the general public. Based on the establishment of a
co-ordinated network of Digital Repositories, containing (textual)
research and other scholarly publications, and on the development of an
advanced-quality test-bed infrastructure, DRIVER will enable enhanced
interoperability of data and service-providers while providing the
required functionalities to the end users. Through its awareness and
advocacy programme, it will foster the development of Digital
Repositories in all European countries. With a number of studies on the
current state of the Digital Repository landscape, it will also identify
the most pressing issues for future developments. <br>
<a href="http://www.driver-repository.eu/" eudora="autourl">
www.driver-repository.eu<br><br>
</a>For more information, please contact:<br><br>
Brent Roe<br>
Executive Director<br>
Canadian Association of Research Libraries<br>
T +1(613)562.5800 x 3652<br>
carl@uottawa.ca<br><br>
Dr. Dale Peters<br>
Scientific Technical Manager DRIVER II<br>
State and University Library of Goettingen<br>
T +49 551 39 5242<br>
peters@sub.uni‐goettingen.de</font></body>
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