By Emmanuel Ejike and Chidinma Nwankwo
The Unijos Institutional Repository Administration has organized a two-day campaign to create awareness for the open access system which was established in the institution some years ago.
The campaign was organized to coincide with the international “Open Access Week”.
Speaking on the occasion, the Repository Administrator, Mr Eric Godwin Martyns said it would give staff and students access to useful resources.
According to him, Open Access is “the free online availability of peer reviewed journals and literature, permitting any user to read, download, view, copy, redistribute, and print them without any financial obligations and legal limitations”.
Mr Martyns explained that the Repository was established in June 2009 as the first in Nigerian universities and second in the entire West Africa with the aim of providing access to learning materials that academicians have deposited free of charge and obtainable anywhere with the university’s server coverage.
Also speaking, the Systems Librarian, University of Jos, Mrs. Vera Akpokodje explained that with open access, “all literature and learning materials are digital, online, free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions”.
She listed some open access sites as: www.eifl.net/imf-elibrary; www.collegeopentextbook.org; www.doaj.org; www.opendoar.org, www.oatd.org; https://pkp.sfu.ca/ocs.
She gave the benefits of the Online Open Access Catalogue (OPAC), saying it reduces mutilation of books in the libraries since much information is now available at no cost online, makes available more content to everyone regardless of institutional affiliation and financial background, as well as provides more literature for students to master their fields.
The open access week which is an international annual event that has been running for the past eight years witnessed a large turn-out of staff and students.
