1. UNIZULU INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY GATEWAY TO LOCAL CONTENT

2. Institutional Repositories - Traditional research documents at universities available in hard copy - Digital Libraries run by educational institution - Digitised intellectual assets - Archive research owned and produced by institution - Electronically available, accessible on www - IR is not publishing and not document management - IR is electronic collection of an institutions research output - IR is a full text database of research of a particular institution

3. STATUS QUO REPORTSTATUS QUO REPORT Link between Institutional repositories and Local Content Knowledge created and owned by community relevant to their situation Mutula (2008) Examples: indigenous knowledge, theses, dissertations, community information

4. INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES IN AFRICA Access to scholarly information in African Universities is limited due to: High cost of publishing Lack of information policy Poor ICT infrastructure etc. SA university libraries lead Africa In South Africa: Currently 14 Repositories in SA Dissertation and Theses main component Excellent networking and support in SA Accessible on Web

5. UNIZULU INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY BACKGROUND Started in 2007 Existing 3200 hard copy dissertations in UNIZULU collection High research output in Unizulu and value of local content Motivated by current library trends and developments in of research Registered IR Project over three years

6. Fig.1: Phased approach of the Unizulu IR project

7. CURRENT STATUS OF IR PROJECT Steering Committee established with all stake holders Hardware and software installed Project and implementation plan approved by Library Committee Project registered Meta editing training done Awareness and marketing drive Challenges: skills, funding, copy right, staffing

8. Value of the IR Project for staff and researchers Gateway to Unizulu research Increase citation impact Effective archiving of scholarly work Creates collegial colleges and networking opportunities Bridge the digital divide Provide access to unique local content

10. CONCLUSION: IR digitisation world wide trend Unizulu IR benefits from Support and networking Zululand becomes part of the information society in Africa Becoming a gateway for local content Project opens many possibilities for future http://196.21.83.35/ uzSPACEhttp://196.21.83.35/ http://ir.dut.ac.za / Durban University of Technologyhttp://ir.dut.ac.za /

11. THANK YOU