DRIVER- SPARC Europe Press Release

["Jones Sophia" <Sophia.Jones@nottingham.ac.uk>]

***Apologies for cross posting***
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Press Release
SPARC Europe and DRIVER sign Memorandum of Agreement
July 7, 2008

For more information, contact: David Prosser, david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk

ISTANBUL, TURKEY - As part of the LIBER 37th Annual Conference
held at the Koc University Suna Kirac Library, Istanbul, from 1
to 5 July 2008, SPARC Europe and DRIVER have agreed to work
closely together on promoting repositories, signing a Memorandum
of Agreement to take this collaboration forward.

SPARC Europe and DRIVER today confirmed a need for cooperation in
order to progress and enhance the provision, visibility and
application of European research outputs through digital
repositories, in systems providing access to texts, data or other
types of content.

DRIVER is a joint initiative of European stakeholders,
co-financed by the European Commission, setting up a technical
infrastructure for digital repositories and facilitating the
building of an umbrella organisation for digital repositories.
DRIVER relies on research libraries for the sustainable operation
of repositories and provision of high quality content through
digital repositories. SPARC Europe and DRIVER share the vision
that research institutions should contribute actively and
cooperatively to a common, pan-European data and service
infrastructure based on digital repositories.

In recent years, research libraries have been pressed to improve
scholarly communication by establishing digital repositories to
expose institutional research outputs to the world. Networks of
individual repositories and overarching information services for
aggregation, retrieval, share and re-use are being built on the
basis of institutional national and regional location, or by
subject areas.

Collaboration between SPARC Europe and DRIVER is framed by their
joint support for an Open Access model for repositories in
research institutions. They will present a common lobby at a
national and international level to leverage change through the
scholarly community within respective institutions and countries.
Their reciprocal support will ensure wider access to standards
for interoperability between repositories, and the adoption of
emerging technical standards to facilitate open archiving. This
agreement demonstrates their joint commitment to promote a
European network of repositories offering access to research
outputs across institutional and national boundaries.

David Prosser, Director of SPARC Europe, said 'Europe is well
placed to take a leading role internationally in the development
of institutional repositories. A combination of institutional
interest, progressive polices from funding bodies, and strong
support from the European Commission creates the perfect
conditions to foster an open research environment. DRIVER is a
key component in underpinning the European repository
infrastructure and we are very pleased to cement our already
close relationship by signing this agreement.

Norbert Lossau, Scientific Coordinator of DRIVER and Director of
Goettingen State and University Library commented: "DRIVER has
always been understood to provide a permanent infrastructure for
digital repositories. To achieve the necessary outreach, this
infrastructure needs to build on collaboration with all relevant
stakeholders. Signing the Memorandum of Understanding with SPARC
Europe, the central lobbying and support organization for Open
Access in Europe, is a significant and welcome consequence of the
collaboration agreement concluded with LIBER in August 2007."

SPARC Europe is an alliance of 110 research-led university
libraries from 14 European countries. It is affiliated with SPARC
based in Washington, D.C., which represents over 200
institutions, mainly in North America. SPARC Europe and SPARC
work to develop and promote new models of scholarly communication
that increase the access to and utility of the research
literature.

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