IR and OA Initiatives in Africa

Abstract

Early IR and OA initiatives in Africa began in 1998, before the term OA was current. • Rhodes University (RU) in South Africa mounted its first digital thesis on the World Wide Web in 1998; it became the first institution in Africa to do so. Other grey literature also gathered. • RU, like many institutions in South Africa, has developed an OA repository, using EPrintsoftware, containing other digital knowledge products. • The Database of African Theses and Dissertations (DATAD) programme of the Association of African Universities (AAU), which was designed to improve management and access to African scholarly work, was a precursor to the development of OA repositories by institutions which participated in the programme.