The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development (EPT) is pleased to announce the winner of its 3rd Annual Award in recognition of the effort made by individuals working in the developing and emerging countries in the furtherance of Open Access (OA) to scholarly publications.
This year, the trust received 10 nominations from a broad spread of countries (Armenia, Egypt, India, Kenya) and covering a very varied range of work. The panel members were impressed by the high standard of nominations, and in the end were unable to decide between two, so declaredMuthu Madhan, India, and Rosemary Otando, Kenya, as joint winners.
Muthu Madhan is Manager, Library and information Services, ICRISAT, Hyderabad 502324, India,and has been highly influential in promoting Open Access within the Indian research community and been heavily involved in setting up many open access repositories – to date he has been instrumental in setting up at least 10 repositories including one for data, and in developing mandatory repository deposition for all Institute publications in two institutions [see for example http://oar.icrisat.org, http://ethesis.nitrkl.ac.in/]. His solid achievements in driving the establishment of ‘green’ open access in India make him a worthy recipient of the award.
Rosemary Otando is Systems Librarian, and EIFL Country and Open Access Coordinator in the University of Nairobi Library , Nairobi, Kenya. She has led OA activities in Kenya, raising awareness among different academic groups, and been instrumental in establishing the University of Nairobi Open Access Policy and repository [see http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/]. In addition she has been active in training, and in facilitating an initiative which has led to the establishment of 20 institutional repositories.
In their own different ways, both Muthu Madan and Rosemary Otando are playing critical roles in establishing OA in their different academic environments.
The award will be presented to each of them at a suitable event later in the year.
The panel also awarded certificates of commendation to two further applicants, Mandy Taha, Egypt,and (jointly) to Tigran Zargaryan and Tigran Zakaryan, Armenia.
Mandy Taha, Senior Librarian and Project Leader, IFLA Center for Arabic Speaking Libraries in the Library of Alexandria, Egypt, has taken a leading role in supporting and publicising Open Access in Egypt and Tunisia , work which is already having an impact on OA in her region [see http://www.openaccessweek.org/profile/MandyTaha]. She has participated in training in Tunisia and Egypt [http://alexlibrarians2.wordpress.com/course-program/congratulations/], and established a series of seminars and talks to popularise OA among University students and staff.
Tigran Zargaryan and Tigran Zakaryan, National Library of Armenia, Armenia, have been active in raising awareness and advocating Open Access in Armenia and have set up an Open Access journals’ portal linked to a National Research Repository containing all of the Armenian scholarly journals published by the Armenian Academy of Sciences as well as repositories at other institutes.