Hoping this is of interest to the list. With apologies for cross-posting.

Kind regards

Grace

Grace Baynes
BioMed Central
[log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7631 9988

Press release: 27 November 2006

Zurich Open Repository and Archive goes live using Open Repository service

University of Zurich has launched ZORA (Zurich Open Repository and Archive) using BioMed Central's Open Repository service. ZORA is freely available online at www.zora.unizh.ch. The University of Zurich is the largest university in Switzerland. Over 4000 staff and 24,000 students work across 160 institutes, departments and clinics.

Open access repositories are fast becoming a must-have for institutions, allowing staff and students to share research findings effectively. The global directory of academic open access repositories, OpenDOAR, launched last month with over 800 entries.

Institutional open access repositories also allow researchers to meet the conditions of funding bodies with an open access mandate. Six research funders now mandate open access to work they have funded, and many more mandates are under consideration. The University of Zurich also has an open access near-mandate, expecting that researchers deposit a copy of all their published and refereed articles in ZORA, subject to copyright restrictions.

The university is the sixth institution to launch a repository using BioMed Central's Open Repository service. Open Repository provides institutions with a hassle-free hosted solution to get repositories up and running quickly. The service adds unique, value-added features to the open-source DSpace technology platform. Zurich, like all other customers, maintains complete administrative control over the repository whilst BioMed Central provides ongoing hosting services, personalization, backups and technical support.

Ingeborg Zimmermann, Head of Research Library Irchel and Project Manager, explains why Zurich chose BioMed Central's Open Repository service,
"Open Repository allowed for a jump-start of our institutional repository, while keeping the mid-term option of moving all content to Zurich and running the repository in-house. Being a university with a large output in biomedical research, the submission of content using PubMed ID and thus enabling automatic metadata transfer was a great help in reaching our first goal of 1000 publications."

Ingeborg Zimmerman recently shared Zurich's experience of outsourcing its repository development to Open Repository at the Open Scholarship 2006 meeting in Glasgow.

Value-added features of the Open Repository in addition to the standard DSpace functionality can include a submission form using PubMed ID and external linking to Entrez databases. BioMed Central can also offer Open Repositories in different (Roman alphabet) languages, and customisable submission forms. The service is now W3 web accessibility compliant A.

Open Repository offers a Pilot Repository set up scheme, allowing customers to have working demo sites personalised to their needs for a 3-month, no obligation, free trial.

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Press contacts:
Grace Baynes for BioMed Central: [log in to unmask] or +44 (0) 20 7631 9988

Christian Fuhrer, University of Zurich, Open Access Coordinator, [log in to unmask]

Sales Contact:
For more information about the Open Repository service, or to discuss setting up a Pilot Repository, please contact
Marianne Josserand: [log in to unmask] or +44 (0) 20 7631 9990

About Open Repository (www.openrepository.com/)
Open Repository is a service provided by BioMed Central for institutions and research organisations. Open Repository offers professional help to institutions to quickly and easily build, launch, maintain, and populate their own repositories. The service has been designed to be flexible and cost-effective. BioMed Central's economy of scale makes it possible for institutions that could not otherwise afford to, or lack the infrastructure or technical capacity in-house, to set up repositories.