Abstract: This paper describes an Afghanistan digital library initiative of building an Integrated Library System (ILS) for Afghanistan universities and colleges based on open source software. As one of the goals of the Afghan eQuality Digital Libraries Alliance, the authors applied systems analysis approach, evaluated different open source ILS, and customized the selected software to accommodate users' needs. Improvements include Arabic/Persian language support, user interface changes, call number label printing and new ISBN-13 support. To our knowledge, the ILS is the first big academic libraries in the the world running on open source software.
From the body of the paper:
...Based on the availability of existing funding, experiences with commercial vendors, and consideration of vendor supports and future directions, the authors decided to build the Digital Library infrastructure with the "open" concept (open access, open source, and open standards). The decision is widely influenced by globalization, open access, open source, open standards, and increasing users expectations....
PS: For background, see my January 2008 post on the ADL and my other past posts on OA in Afghanistan.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/22/2008 10:17:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
