Implementing Open Access in information sharing in Universities in Kenya: Case of Moi University, School of Medicine

Abstract

Open access to information and knowledge is an innovative mode of scholarly communication within the digital environment and at the same time an achievement of universal access to information and knowledge. Open access to knowledge is a model adopted by many international and intergovernmental fora, such as the world summit on the information society for disseminating full-text contents to online communication. This paper overviews open access in Universities in Kenya, a case of Moi University; School of Medicine. This paper attempts to assess the impact and implications of electronic publishing on Libraries and Information Centers. The aim of the study was to investigate strategies that had been put in place in implementing of open access as a way of promoting utilization of information resources at Moi University, School of Medicine Library and to make some recommendations to the library management on the way forward. The objectives were to examine the strategies adopted in opening access to information; to establish the kind of information material available for institutional repositories; to examine challenges encountered by the School of Medicine Library in implementing open access to information and to make recommendation on the way forward in implementation of open access. Purposive sampling technique was used to determine the number of respondents to be interviewed to seek information for this research. Methods used to collect data were face- to-face interviewing and analysis of documentary evidence. The study indicates that school of medicine library has a long way to go in setting up open access