---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Hannah Elizabeth Payne [hep] <hep -- aber.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 7:15 AM
Subject: ***Press Release*** Welsh Repository Network (WRN) launch
To: JISC-REPOSITORIES_at_jiscmail.ac.uk
***Press Release***
Welsh Repository Network (WRN) launch
The Welsh Repository Network (WRN), a network of twelve institutional
repositories within each of the higher education institutions (HEI)
within Wales, was launched at the National Library of Wales on
Thursday 19th February, 2009. The launch celebrated the success of
the WRN Project; a project funded by the JISC in association with the
Wales Higher Education Library Forum (WHELF), to provide each HEI in
Wales with the resources and support needed to establish and operate
effective, individual institutional repositories. Each HEI was
provided with funding to purchase repository hardware or to purchase
a hosted repository system, along with support and assistance via the
Welsh arm of the Repositories Support Project (RSP) based at
Aberystwyth University.
The WRN launch celebrated the fact that the principality of Wales now
has 100% coverage with respect to universities and repositories. This
will allow the universities in Wales to not only preserve and protect
their research, but also make available cutting edge research to the
world, enabling more open dissemination of the ground breaking and
world leading research undertaken across Wales through the Open
Access movement.
A further deliverable of the project is the production of a suite of
twelve case studies, documenting the hardware purchases of each
institution (available from
http://hdl.handle.net/2160/1881). As the
HEIs in Wales are diverse in size and type, ranging from large
research-led institutions to smaller liberal arts or specialist
institutions, a variety of hardware and software solutions were
required to fit with their existing infrastructures. It was hoped
that creating these case studies would assist other universities to
allow them to compare their profile with a case study of an
institution with a similar background and infrastructure plan, and to
gauge their hardware needs for repository support accordingly.
The WRN helps to address the Welsh Assembly Government's Reaching
Higher objectives in respect of improving institutional efficiency,
increasing capacity and encouraging collaboration, but also helps to
make a significant contribution to the overall aims and objectives of
the JISC Repositories and Preservation Programme.
The following article, containing further details of the WRN project
is available from:
http://hdl.handle.net/2160/1882.
Lewis, S. and Payne, H. (2009). How the West was won: Providing
repositories across the principality of Wales. ALISS Quarterly. 4(2),
18-22.
WRN Project website:
http://whelf.ac.uk/wrn/index.shtml
Hannah Payne
Project Officer (Organisational)
Repositories Support Project
Aberystwyth University
01970 628490
Received on Mon Feb 23 2009 - 12:37:27 GMT