Open access is an alternative publishing and distribution model that makes scholarly research literature-most of which is already funded by taxpayers around the world-freely available to the public online, without restrictions. Harnessing the power of the internet, open access brings the results of academic research to unprecedented numbers of scientists, university professors, medical researchers, patients, inventors, students, and others.

Most of materials available in libraries are copyrighted. On the other hand, it requires copying and digitizing these materials to enable research,...

The issue of digital identity seems to be causing a lot of waves on the online community. people are really indeed concerned about their privacy and its management. Internet privacy tools have an unfortunate but well-deserved reputation for being technically difficult and bothersome. There's a persistent story that says that there is an intrinsic, irreducible complexity to the problem of keeping your communications from being snooped on and keeping your data from leaking that makes it the exclusive domain of spies and the professionally paranoid.

this blog celebrates my 18+ years as an Information Professional, precisely as a Documentalist. the blog will touch on this and that regarding the often misconstrued LIS/RAM world, sharing my personal and professional experiences. the blog will also have a strong bias towards manipulation of ICTs and LIS/RAM and will be very interactive and your input will be most welcome...

Researching online often means leaving a trail of information about yourself, including your location, what websites you visited and for how long, with whom you chatted or emailed, and what you downloaded and printed. All of these details are all easy to associate with a particular computer user when insufficient privacy protections are in place.

Interesting and shocking article, we are all consumed with our everyday social networking profiles, but has it ever clicked to you what happens when one kicks the bucket. Is your profile preserved, deleted or it becomes a memorial Losing a friend or family member is painful enough, but imagine the extra, unnecessary jabs when that friend's social networking profile continues to pop up in searches. Or say your friend was particularly wise or witty when posting online, but when you went back to reference something later, the entire record was gone without a trace.

Mike McConnell has attended many of the IWMW events which have been held since its launch in 1997. This year's event made a particular impression, particularly with its focus on 'digital' rather than 'web'. In this guest post Mike reflects on the event and describes the moves towards digital taking place at his host institution,...

Literacy is the human right, but there are still 781 million illiterate people in the world. Every single day is good to spread the word about literacy, and help organizations like UNESCO or Worldreader to bring educational opportunities to people in developing countries. One day, however, is special.

Open access, be it via institutional repositories or publishing using OJS, is fast becoming the norm for sharing research output. Africa needs to get onto the open access bandwagon.