Call for self-archiving in Nigeria

Consortium tasks Nigerian scholars on information, The Tide Online, May 3, 2008.  Excerpt:

The Nigerian University Library (NULIB) consortium has called on Nigerian scholars to submit their works for inclusion into the repository for information sharing among libraries.

The Chairman of the consortium, Prof. Doris Bozimo, made the call today at the ongoing workshop on "Institutional Repositories and Open Access" in Zaria.

She appealed to scholars to grant necessary permission on their works to be openly accessed.

Bozimo said the plea became necessary because more than 95 per cent of materials in Nigerian universities and research libraries were imported and have become too precious and expensive to share.

"Research activities within Nigerian universities and research institutes suffer isolation and fragmentation resulting from the inability or unwillingness to share resources such as thesis, dissertation, journals and printed reports," she said.…

Bozimo appealed to the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) and other decision makers to assist in building repositories in institutions nationwide.

PS:  Bozimo spoke at Open Access Repositories: New Models for Scholarly Communication (Zaria, Nigeria, April 28-29, 2008).  The conference was sponsored by eIFL.net and Ahmadu Bello University.