Santiago, Chile May , 2012 – Representatives from a small group of government ministries, library organisations, and projects from Latin America met on May 3-4, 2012 to continue to discuss plans for a regional infrastructure for COAR to support the growing Open Access movement, repositories, and initiatives throughout the region.
The outcome of the meeting was a firm plan to establish a provisional regional group for COAR as part of COAR’s overall commitment to increasing support for and involvement of Latin American members. The regional group will be hosted by the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Productive Innovation of Argentina (MINCYT), a current member of COAR. Furthermore, representatives from the LA REFERENCIA project will be integrated into the regional group of COAR. LA REFERENCIA is a regional initiative designed to create a federated network of institutional repositories of scientific publications to support scientific production in Latin America. The LA REFERENCIA project includes representatives from Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico, and Ecuador.
This structure will be provisional and will last until a permanent structure is established. The ultimate goal is to further the participation of Latin American members in COAR’s global organisation. As one of COAR’s goals is to promote policies and tools for developing a global Open Access infrastructure, it is critical that Latin America’s regional needs are supported and is well-represented throughout all levels of COAR.
The meeting was attended by Malgorzata Lisowska, Technical Coordinator of LA REFERENCIA; Carmen Gloria Labbé, Director of Innovation and Development of RedCLARA; Bianca Melo Amaro, Brazilian Institute of Information Science and Technology (IBICT); Florencio Utreras, Executive Director of RedCLARA; Silvia Nakano, Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation of Argentina (MINCYT); and Alicia Lopez Medina, Executive Director of COAR.
About LA REFERENCIA
The Federated Network of Institutional Repositories of Scientific Publications (LA REFERENCIA) is a project submitted by RedClara, funded by the Regional Public Goods Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and has the participation of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia , Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.
This initiative seeks to share and give visibility to the scientific production generated in insti- tutions of higher education and research in Latin America. Its main purpose is the creation of an agreed strategy and a framework for agreements for the construction and maintenance of a Federated Network of Institutional Repositories of Scientific Publications for storing, sharing, giving visibility and open access to scientific production in Latin America.
Web site: http://lareferencia.redclara.net/rfr/
