Research4Life launched GOALI (Global Online Access to Legal Information) in March 2018 to provide developing countries with access to academic legal content and training. For the first anniversary, the team launched a feedback survey in order to better understand what their users need.
More than 77 users from about 20 low- and middle-income countries shared their experiences. Half of them were librarians, 26 percent researchers, and almost 10 percent work as government officials. This confirms that librarians play a key role in promoting access to high-quality research and scientific resources. One third of the most devoted users work in universities, followed by research institutes and government offices.
Librarians often face a lack of access to legal information. GOALI gives full-text access to publications to which they do not have access most of the time.
Another important aspect is copyright issues and intellectual property rights, which are crucial for researchers. According to Grace O. Tayo from Babcock University, as a research administrator, legal information will help assist researchers with grant writing, IP issues, grant management and entrepreneurial activities of the University.
In the survey, users were asked what they can do to make GOALI even more useful. They noted that they often need to access case law, law reports and statutes from Commonwealth countries, in addition to major legal databases and local content, such as articles from Africa.
Users also asked for more information on social sciences or specific disciplines such as psychology. Some users also requested further training opportunities.
In addition, several free access databases have been added to the GOALI portal, like NATLEX, the ILO database of national labour and social security legislation, and the African Law Library and African Journals OnLine (AJOL), an online library of scholarly journals published in Africa.
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