1. OPEN ACCESS AND
INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES
IN KENYA
BY
ROSEMARY OTANDO
E-RESOURCES LIBRARIAN
UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI LIBRARY

2. Why open access?
 For long term preservation,
organization and access or
distribution of scholarly work to
accelerate research and enhance
progress in science and development.

3. Ways of providing Open Access
1. OA Journals – Peer reviewed
2. OA Repositories – Regional or
Institutional Repositories
 Institutional Repositories? - Set of
services that a university offer to the
members of its community for the
management and dissemination of digital
materials created by the institution and
its community members.

4. WHY IR IN ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH
INSTITUTIONS IN KENYA?
 To provide for an effective system to
disseminate and access research
information, digitize and preserve
digital content that is in danger of
extinction.
 Provide avenue for scholars and
researchers to publish their
intellectual and scholarly works

5. Why IR IN KENYA? (Cont.)
 Adding to Inst./faculty prestige
through showcasing their academic
research
 Gives authors and their works
immeasurable publicity and increased
visibility

6. Why IR IN KENYA?
 To create mechanism for sharing information
with other institutions in Kenya and beyond. Do
we want to participate in our country’s
development? – share scientific findings
 Others are sharing
 why not us?

7. Others are sharing!
 Opendoar –
http://www.opendoar.org/
 AJOL – African Journal Online
- http://ajol.info/
 OAISTER – Digitised material
http://oaister.worldcat.org/
 WorldWideScience.org –
International scientific
databases -
http://worldwidescience.org/
 Biomed Central:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/
 WHO publications -
http://www.who.int/en/
 NDLTD – Networked Digital
Library of Theses and
Dissertations -
http://www.ndltd.org/find
 BioOne.org - sciences.
http://www.bioone.org/
 Open J- Gate -
http://www.openj-
gate.org/Footer/About.aspx

8. Others are sharing!
 Plosone – peer-reviewed
science publications
http://www.plosone.org/stati
c/guidelines.action
 Open Humanities Press -
http://openhumanitiespress.
org/index.html
 Oxford Open Access
Journals -
http://www.oxfordjournals.or
g/oxfordopen/
 Kenya Law Reports -
http://www.kenyalaw.org/upd
ate/index.php
 African Digital Library – free
for Africa
http://www.africaeducation.or
g/adl/
 OER sites - OERAfrica –
Established by SA Inst. -
http://www.oerafrica.org/Home/tabi
d/36/Default.aspx
 Lawyers in Africa
http://www.apkn.org/dspace/xml
ui/

9. KLISC INSTITUTIONS AND IR
PROJECTS
 Concept of IR Introduced earlier (ILRI,
Moi)
 2008, 2009,2010- workshops on Open
Access and free software that can be used
for IR e.g. DSpace and Greenstone
software.
 Follow-up visits and workshops to
enhance skills and to sensitize staff on IR.

10. KLISC INSTITUTIONS AND IR
PROJECTS (Cont.)
 Currently, most inst. are in the
development stage, i.e.
 Installation
 Customization
 Submission stage

11. KLISC INSTITUTIONS AND IR
PROJECTS (Cont.)
 Involving key stakeholders e.g.
university administrators, policy
makers, students, academic staff
etc
 Policy issues
 Sensitization and training

12. Identified KLISC institutions implementing IR
(Mostly full text items)
 ILRI (Online)
• KARI (Online)
• University of Nairobi (60 items - LAN)
• Kenyatta University (Past Papers)
• College of Insurance (30 items)
• KMFRI (Advanced stage – 400 items)
• The Kenya Polytechnic University College (Project
collapsed)
• Kabarak (Advanced stage – (3000 items)
• Baraton (Development stage - customization)
• Agha Khan University (Development stage)

13. Identified Institutions (Cont.)
• Strathmore (Advanced stage – LAN/WAN)
• Marist International (55 items)
• Moi (Advanced stage – LAN)
• KCA (Initial stage – Customization and policy issues)
• JKUAT (Initial stage – Policy Issues)
• KEMRI (full-text)
• Egerton (Initial – Policy issues)
• Maseno University (Initial-customization, Policy issues)
• Daystar (Initial – Policy Issues)
• St. Paul university (Initial – customization, policy issues)

14. KLISC Institutions Implementing IR
31%
69%
KLISC Institutions
Implementing IR
KLISC Institutions not yet
implementing IR

15. Choice of software (Greenstone/DSpace)
52%
32%
16%
Dspace
Greenstone
Both

16. Type of Content/collections Submitted to
IRs in Kenya
 Audio and video files, films and
images of distinguished staff, visitors,
monuments, and buildings.
 Conferment of Honorary Degrees
 Presentations/speeches from
distinguished guests.

17. Type of Content/collections (Cont.)
 Book chapters and  Newspaper articles

18. Technical reports, theses and dissertations,
gray literature, teaching modules, manuals
and guides.

19. Type of Content/collections (Cont.)
 Television broadcasts/interviews
 Research articles, workshop
materials
 Working papers and conference
proceedings

20. Level of access
 Allowed to
search,
access and
download
full text,
bibliographic
and
abstracts.
16%
84%
On WAN
On LAN

21. Sample of Screen-shot of IR homepage

26. Challenges
 ICT infrastructure
 Inadequate staff – need for adequate staff to
run the project i.e. full time administrator, ICT
person, Digitization expert
 Policy Issues (Expert guidance on copyright
issues)
 Promotion – concept is foreign (Convincing
faculties to contribute in the development of
the project – faculty adoption disappointing)

27. Future plans For KLISC
 Follow-up workshops and visits
 Follow-up visits, workshops and
training to sensitize academic staff
and researchers on the need for IR
and sharing of information.
 Sustainability (Proposal for budget for
sustainability)

28. Future plans
 Deal with licensing, privacy issues and Copyright
issues (Develop IR policies)
 Suggestion - government and funding
bodies to mandate their funded
researchers to deposit a copy of the
articles in their IR.
 Deal with staffing and training.
 Raising awareness – aggressive marketing to
solicit content by collaborating with faculties to
build the repository.

29. Future Plans(Cont.)
 Launching IRs – ILRI and KARI, the only IR
that is alive on the web; Strathmore, UoN on
LAN but launching soon; others in the
development stage
 Training trainers for Kenyan institutions –
have local experts in the two software to
support the upcoming institutions.
 Soliciting for funds and a budget for
sustainability of the IR projects.

30. Future plans
 Activation of full-text access to users.
 Reach other institutions that have interest
to establish IR (Both government and
private institutions)
 Follow-up visits to enhance skills and
provide additional support.
 Increase collections and provide
access via the WAN (Open Access )

31. CONCLUSION.
Scientific findings do not belong to a
country but to the whole world
Thank you!