In early September this year I was giving a couple of presentations on OA and its impact on developing countries (the Inter Academy Panel workshop in Cuba, and the British Association for the Advancement of Science Festival of Science in Liverpool, UK) [here and here, respectively] and in the course of preparation of figures for my Power Point presentations I collected information showing the level of OA-development in the developing and emerging countries, particularly with regard to the numbers of Institutional Repositories that had been set up. Now, I have revisited those figures to see what has changed. And it’s good news.
In early September, the total number of IRs (as shown by the Registry of Open Access Repositories) was 1122. Of these, 173 had been set up in developing countries (15.5%). I rechecked these figures on December 16th and found that the total number of IRs had risen by 112 to 1234, of which the number in developing countries was now 262 (21%). [PS: That's a 51% rise in the number of listed repositories in developing countries.] ...
Furthermore, as reported elsewhere on this blog, usage of these OA resources was quite spectacular, demonstrating the real need that exists for this research information currently inaccessible to many. And, as we also learn daily (see Peter Suber’s OAN), with the arrival of Open Access a whole raft of associated developments are being funded and coming on line – new applications, search/support/networking improvements, IR workshops, software development workshops, open data workshops, policy meetings and conferences . . . As, following the invention of the motor car, so roads, garages, driving licenses, parking arrangements, car salesmen, maps and associated engineering services all emerged, so we now see a vibrant hum of OA activities around the world....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/23/2008 11:35:00 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.
