Institutional Repository Movement in Turkey

Abstract

ANKOS (The Anatolian University Libraries Consortium) established Open Access and the Institutional Repositories Working Group (OAIRWG) in order to raise awareness on Open Access (OA) and Institutional Repositories (IRs) among information professionals in Turkey. Ankara University is one of the first open access initiatives in Turkey. It has been involved in ANKOS since 2001, expressing a strong interest from the beginning. Over seven hundred and fifty scientific papers produced by faculty members have been self-archived (http://acikarsiv.ankara.edu.tr/) and made accessible since the beginning of 2006. The “Hacettepe University Electronic Theses Project” has been carried to make the full-texts of graduate theses and dissertations accessible through the Internet. The Middle East Technical University Electronic Theses and Dissertations project was started to provide web access to theses and dissertations that have been completed at the Middle East Technical University (METU) since April 2003. In September 2003, the METU Library Theses and Dissertations Archive was established and since that time students have been submitting their theses in both print and PDF. On the poster, the activities of ANKOS OAIRWG will be summarized and three examples of open archive initiatives in Turkey will be presented: Ankara and Hacettepe Universities’ Institutional Repositories and Middle East Technical University’s E-Theses Archive.