1. EPrints Community: what it is and what we do Steve Hitchcock EPrints Community Manager For EPrints Training, 17-18 July 2006, Southampton

2. About the Community (official) http://www.eprints.org/community/

3. Why a Community? For many institutions using EPrints, where EPrints is increasingly embedded in institutional policy, workflow and practices, the demands are too great to leave support to chance. EPrints Community is a first step towards formalising and addressing that need, by giving members forums to influence the development of EPrints, to obtain critical and timely information, and to interact with each other. The idea came from a meeting of EPrints users: Putting Eprints Software into the User Community, June 2004 http://opcit.eprints.org/jisc-eprints-user/ http://opcit.eprints.org/jisc-eprints-user/

4. The three Is Influence: on EPrints development Information: that affects repositories Interact: sharing ideas, experience with other Community members

5. Community services Influence TRAC* Survey* Information Insiders Mail list and list archive* EPrints Insiders Blog http://www.eprints.org/community/blog/ http://www.eprints.org/community/blog/ Newsletter Interact wiki http://wiki.eprints.org/w/Main_Pagehttp://wiki.eprints.org/w/Main_Page Scripts, patches http://files.eprints.org/http://files.eprints.org/ *exclusive to members

6. Members EEMCS, University of Twente University of Leeds/White Rose Consortium National University of Ireland at Maynooth Organic Eprints, Denmark SLU, Sweden Rhodes University, South Africa University of Pittsburgh, USA Southampton University UQAM, Montreal, Canada DLIST (based in Arizona, USA) E-LIS (based in Italy) DLR (German Aerospace Center) Open University

7. Progress 1.Promote and build membership 2.Introduce services 3.Evaluate services with member feedback 4.Facilitate interaction between members 5.Formulate Community governance Formally launched in 4Q 2005, essentially we are now at 3 (although 1 will be ongoing for some time), hopefully picking up pace as we move towards 4 and, eventually, 5. Feedback for 3 was initiated with the member survey.

8. Helping to keep EPrints free Its great that software is free, but serious users share the responsibility for maintaining that status. We are preparing for when funding streams from generous sponsors run out, by identifying new income streams that will support and enhance the free software. Any community is as strong as its members make it. If you value EPrints, please join the Community.