Lenus Irish Health Repository included into RIAN web-based Open Access portal

HSE Press Release

23^rd October 2013

 

Lenus Irish Health Repository included into RIAN web-based Open Access portal

It has been announced that LENUS has been included as a participating repository in RIAN, the national open access portal which collates the research output of ten higher education repositories in Ireland. 
Since its establishment by the HSE’s Regional Library and Information Service in 2009, Lenus has championed and promoted the dissemination of health service research and its availability in RIAN is a major development in Irish open access publishing.

RIAN is a web-based Open Access portal that harvests and displays the content of the repositories of the seven universities and the DIT in Ireland.  Commenting on the inclusion of LENUS in this portal , Bennery Rickard, HSE’s Regional Library and Information Service commented that  Ireland was now at the forefront of the Open Access movement . “RIAN is among the first wave of national open access portals in the world and it is very exciting that LENUS has been included.”  The portal will demonstrate the impact of research to potential investors and funders, who recognise the value of wider research dissemination.

This is a very welcome development and a great achievement as Lenus is one of the first non university repositories to be included in the RIAN Portal.   It raises the profile of researchers working in the health services and puts health service research into a national context with the academic and scientific research being carried out by third level institutions, while allowing research funders to accurately gauge the results and impact of their funding.

It also provides a Europe-wide platform for Irish health service research, through the forthcoming inclusion of RIAN in the EU’s OpenAIRE portal and boosts the profile of the HSE’s research programme and the reputations of its researchers.

LENUS is Ireland’s most comprehensive online repository of health-related reports, research and official publications. Spanning a period from the 1960s to the present day, LENUS makes available a wealth of material from former Irish health boards, the Health Service Executive, the Department of Health and Children and many other organisations active in the field of Irish health.

Issued by:

National Press Office

Dr. Steeven’s Hospital

Dublin 8

Tel: 01 635 2840

Email: press@hse.ie

Notes to Editors:

RIAN is the outcome of a sectoral higher education project supported by the Irish Government's 'Strategic Innovation Fund'. Project planning was carried out by the seven Irish university libraries, DCU, NUIG, NUIM, TCD, UCC, UCD, UL and was supported by the Irish Universities Association (IUA).

The project aim is to harvest to one portal the contents of the Institutional Repositories of the seven university libraries, in order to make Irish research material more freely accessible, and to increase the research profiles of individual researchers and their institutions. It is intended to extend the harvest to other Irish research institutions as RIAN develops.

The aggregation of this content will have significant benefits. It will be the primary source for Irish Open Access research publications.  Jointly agreed metadata standards will facilitate more accurate searching and retrieval. The aggregated content will make further value-added features, such as  statistical analysis, possible.  RIAN will allow other agencies, for example DRIVER, to harvest normalised metadata for better search results.

People working in the health sector who benefit from Open Access initiatives include: health professionals, public health doctors, managers, policy makers, researchers, and information workers from organisations such as the Health Service Executive; Department of Health; Voluntary health sector, Irish health agencies, academic health sector.

For more information see www.openaccessweek.org ; http://rian.ie ; www.lenus.ie