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AVLIN in Brief
What is AVLIN?
The African Virtual Library and Information Network (AVLIN) will be a network of Internet-based information and knowledge resources and services that form a web of virtual libraries and knowledge exchanges, and will link African libraries, information centres and specialized networks. An enhanced platform of knowledge and information among researchers and policy makers, it will be accessible to the people of the region and to others engaged in African development sectors.
Goals and Objectives of AVLIN
AVLIN’s overarching objective is to help bridge the digital divide between Africa and the developed world by:
- providing access to, policy documents and reports, bibliographic databases, general information and expert and institutional profiles of African universities, research institutions, libraries and information centres;
- building capacity at institutional, national and regional levels on development of integrated virtual library services;
- promoting regional cooperation on standardization and virtual library system developments; and
- facilitating research and developmental activities in both infrastructure and development of digital and virtual libraries.
Operational Framework
AVLIN is a collaborative project of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), other interested regional institutions, and the African library community;
- Ownership of content, hardware, in-house software, operational strategies and human resources will be vested in partners and participants. ECA’s role will be facilitative and integrative;
- Membership and participation shall be voluntary;
- Implementation efforts will seek to ensure seamless complementarity with related projects and initiatives of the ECA, for example, the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) and the African Knowledge Network Forum (AKNF);
- Main focus will be on capacity building at institutional, national and regional levels; regional cooperation on standardization and system development; and the facilitation of research and development activities in both infrastructure and development of digital and virtual libraries.
Technical Framework
AVLIN will be a distributed network, meaning that its databases of information resources will not all be loaded onto a computer system of a single institution;
- Available databases, digital libraries and other information resources and services will be housed and operated locally, but connected to the Internet;
- AVLIN will provide the necessary interfaces for users to access the variously developed virtual libraries, knowledge exchanges, and other information networks;
- Its physical structure will include powerful search engines, collaborative software (knowledge exchange engine), and links to a variety of information objectives and platforms;
- Information related to the various economic and social sectors will be covered including agriculture, population, education, transport and communications, health and environment and other emerging issues.
Partnership Arrangements
ECA will forge close collaboration with organisations that have known interest in development information and institutional networking. Co-operation with a wide range of African institutions including Africa Union (AU), African Development Bank (ADB) and the Association of African Universities (AAU), international and multilateral knowledge-producing centres of excellence in the development sector will also be sought.
Complementarity and Co-ordination
Implementation efforts will seek to ensure seamless complementarity with other institutional knowledge based projects and initiatives of the ECA and those of collaborators. It will also seek to complement and support other digital and virtual library projects targeted to the African region. The Sub-Regional Offices (SROs) of the ECA, located as they are in various parts of the Africa region will provide critical inputs for the identification and the implementation of joint activities with sub-regional institutions and centres of excellence which might eventually become AVLIN sites.
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