Digital repositories and open access were discussed at the DRFIC.
By Carol Minton Morris
Ithaca, NY With the theme, "Open Access Repositories now and in the future – from the global and Asia-Pacific points of view" the Digital Repository Federation International Conference (DRFIC) was held on December 3-4, 2009, in Tokyo and focused on topics relevant to digital repository and open access. DRFIC 2009 provided a place in the Asia Pacific Region to discuss academic communication and Open Access, and also to share information about changes in academic publishing and what its future might be with interested stakeholders. Calling for good practices, international harmonization and making repository success stories known, Syun Tituya, Chiba University (http://mitizane.ll.chiba-u.jp/curator/index_e.html) offered opening remarks and reviewed repository growth in Japan. He stated that almost all research university libraries in Japan now manage repositories, with 110 known installations in higher education and some in research-focused institutions.
Reminding the audience that Open Access is primarily a means, and not a goal of scientific research, Tituya began the proceedings by suggesting that the rapid expansion of repositories in the last ten years, "Is just the first stepping stone for repositories."
Organizations that use DSpace to implement repositories were featured in several sessions. You may download all presentations here: http://drf.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/drf/index.php?DRFIC2009. Presentations from DSpace users included:
Kanazawa University, Hideki Uchijima (presentation) University of Tsukuba, Sho Sato (presentation) Otaru University, Masako Suzuki (presentation) University of Hong Kong, David Palmer (presentation) Academia Sinica, Simon C. Lin, Ya-Ning Chen, (presentation) Cranfield University, Simon Bevan (presentation) National Institute of Informatics, Jun Adachi (presentation)
