Open Access to Research in Malawi

Open Access Advocacy Workshop, 29th October 2009

Kondwani WellaKCN College Librarian, eIFL- Coordinator

Outline

• Introduction

• Cases

• Open access IR in Malawi

• Challenges

• Opportunities

• Way forward

Introduction

• Malawi has 2 major universities; several upcoming universities

• Malawi has 4 major Research Stations (6 sub-stations)

• Several commissioned research going on– All these generate interesting findings, – Published in international journals– Locked away in offices

Opening thoughts!!

• Is OPEN necessarily ACCESSIBLE?

• Do information retrieval tools matter at all

• Is the World Wide Web open?

Case 1: Article Published by Bunda Researchers

When accessed in Malawi

Asked to buy!!!

Case 2: National HerbariumBook chapter published in “Poverty in Africa”

The cost of the book

Case 3: Conference papers

Not searchable

Full-text from WASHTED website

Case 4: Theses and Dissertations

Not searchable

Not searchable

What do these cases tell us?

• Malawi has embraced open access?

• With internet anyone can manage information?

• Researchers no longer trust librarians?

• Librarians are not doing their job?

• There is no collaboration between librarians and researchers?

questions???

• Why should we buy articles published in Malawi?

• Is the ‘world’ unfair or we are being unfair to ourselves?

Open Access Repositories in Malawi

Open access repositories in Malawi

• Bunda College – Greenstone repository of Malawiana

• Chancellor College – DSpace Malawiana

• College of Medicine – DSpace and Greenstone repository

• Mzuzu University – Greenstone repository

• MALICO – DATAD theses and dissertations repository

Challenges

• Copyright/Intellectual property law

• Faculty and researcher buy-in??

• Institutional support?

• Collaboration, partnerships (not there yet)

• Infrastructure (connectivity) – being addressed by MALICO, MAREN and UbuntuNet Alliance

Opportunities

• Librarians in Malawi have re-trained/trained to embrace new paradigms

• Open source solutions available

• Government support for tertiary education, research, science and technology

• Initiatives to improve connectivity (MALICO, MAREN, Ubuntunet Alliance)

• Malawi Library and Information Consortium

Way forward• Strengthen collaboration (Librarians,

researchers, policy makers, ICT professionals)

• Look for funding for capital equipment

• Strengthen MALICO (resources, secretariat)

• Build strong partnership between MALICO, MAREN, NRCM etc

• Build a national repository

Questions & Discussion

kwella@kcn.unima.mw