Electronic Library of Ukraine (ElibUkr) Participates at Library Innovation & E-Governance Fair

A major library innovation & e-governance fair took place in Kyiv at the Ukrainian House on April 11, 2011. The event was organized by the program Bibliomist, funded by the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation and managed by IREX, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Library Association (ULA), the Parliamentary Development Project II, and also with the collaboration of the Public Affairs Section U.S. Embassy in Ukraine. More than 50 Ukrainian libraries, community organizations and projects presented innovative library services that provide application of current library technology.

The ElibUkr project was invited to participate in the fair as an example of one of the most successful library initiatives in Ukraine. The consortium of university libraries began three years ago with 3 libraries and now includes 12 participants with 4 additional applicants at this time. The project was initiated by the Kyiv Mohyla Foundation of America and Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and supported by USAID and participating universities.

The current participants include:

Project participants as of 1 April, 2011 are National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Donetsk National Technical University, Kharkiv National University of Radioelectronics, Sevastopol National Technical University, Sumy State University, Tavrida National V.I. Vernadsky University , Ternopil Ivan Pul'uj National Technical University , Ukrainian Academy of Banking, Vasyl Stefanyk Lviv National Scientific Library of Ukraine, Volyn National University of Lesya Ukrainka. Current Applicants are Odessa National, Mechnikov University, Zaporizhzhya National University, National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”, Pryazovskyi State Technical University.

The project provides access to digitized global academic and research information and an opportunity for Ukrainian academics and researchers to share their publications with the world.

Since its inception almost 3 years ago, more than 200,000 students and 12,000 university faculty members had access to global information through 53 subscribed databases through the ElibUkr central portal. More than 600 training sessions for users and 14 sessions for trainers were held. Each participating university created its own open- archive repository for publications of each institution that lead to integration of Ukrainian research and academic work with the world. The central portal also established a multidisciplinary open electronic archive ELibUkr-OA, where researchers of different institutions can place their publications. The ElibUkr-OA includes free access to stored information, including declassified materials from SBU archives.

ElibUkr is continually expanding and welcomes new members. The project is currently sustained by the participating members and seeks funding from the Ukrainian government, foundations and other donors.

The first phase of the project was financed entirely by grants from USAID, Kyiv Mohyla Foundation of America and the contributions of participating universities. But funding is needed for paid data bases, operations, training and updates. Without access to global information Ukraine cannot sustain development of a democratic civil society or build political and economic competitiveness. In September 2010 the government of Ukraine committed to financial support of the project for access to major data bases for 85 universities. The funding is yet to come through. For further information or interest in participation and funding contact mail@kmfoundation.com or yaroshenko@ukma.kiev.ua. The project’s webpage is available at http://www.elibukr.org.