Report on the eIFL meeting in Jordan

eIFL has written a report on its 2006 General Assembly in Amman, Jordan (September 10-12, 2006). Excerpt:

One of the ambitions of eIFL.net is to inform its members about cutting-edge issues and to attract top quality innovators from the information world. This year Anurag Acharya, Google Distinguished Engineer, explored the creation of union catalogues and offered his brainchild, Google Scholar, as a means for eIFL libraries to increase the visibility of their vast repositories. With the motto "Standing on the shoulders of giants", Google Scholar aims to make the world's scientific literature universally accessible.

The Scholar project results from Acharya's experience as a student in rural India when material in his local library was typically out-of-date. "I understand the problems facing students and researchers in developing countries," said Acharya. "That is why I welcome the opportunity to engage with the eIFL community. I believe that Google Scholar can help to make masses of valuable research material accessible. Wouldn't it be a suburb achievement if the next scientific breakthrough comes from a researcher in an eIFL country?", enthused Acharya.

New participants learnt about eIFL licences and activities on open access, institutional repositories, open source software and intellectual property in the Newcomer's Session....