The US Civilian Research and Development Foundation, a nonprofit created by the US government to promote international science programmes, is reportedly leading a project to connect universities and science institutes in North Africa to a 'digital library'. The digital library effort will begin in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, and may eventually expand to Mauritania and Libya.
The Foundation will initially work with Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia to increase their access to the latest international research, provide scientists greater opportunities to collaborate, and further bolster their scientific work and scholarly publishing. It is spending $1.5 million on the effort, similar to one it recently completed in Iraq. The money is part of a $5 million grant awarded to the nonprofit by the US Department of State to support scientific cooperation in the Middle East and North Africa.
While the North African digital library project is still in its formative years, researchers in the region are stated to be positive about its prospects.
In addition to North Africa, the foundation is also helping set up digital libraries in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Madagascar. In June it completed the Iraqi library, which made approximately 6,000 online journals available to all Iraqi universities and several government ministries.
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