This document discusses efforts to improve access to agricultural research information through various initiatives. It introduces the CIARD initiative which aims to make this research publicly available and accessible to all. CIARD has developed a manifesto, checklist, pathways, and RING (Research Information Network Gateway) to facilitate discovery and integration of information from different sources. Examples are provided of information systems and repositories that apply CIARD standards to share agricultural research openly, including AGRIS, IRRI's DSpace, ICRISAT's DSpace, and others. Registering services in the RING makes the organizations CIARD partners and helps users more easily find relevant information.

1. PhilAgriNet FAO’s Information Resources Gerard Sylvester Knowledge and Information Management Officer Seminar-Workshop on Upgrading Proficiencies for Information Documentation and Sharing and 2nd General Assembly Feb 24-25, 2011

2. “I’d be happy if I could think that the role of the library was sustained and even enhanced in the age of the computer.” --Bill Gates 2

3. The Goal Availability, Accessibility & Applicability (AAA) Why? - Maximizing Research Impact (among other things) “To make public domain agricultural research information and knowledge truly accessible to all” 3

5. Institutional & Individual

7. Interoperability4

8. CIARD Initiative http://www.ciard.net/ the Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD) initiative is working to make agricultural research information publicly available and accessible to all. 5

9. CIARD Manifesto http://www.ciard.net/ciard-manifesto Towards a Knowledge Commons on Agricultural Research for Development 6

10. CIARD Checklist http://www.ciard.net/checklist - Set of items towards achievement of the CIARD Manifesto and Values. It is not a set of requirements 7

11. CIARD Pathways http://www.ciard.net/pathways - Set of good practices and "how to" guides based on the experiences of other institutions. 8

12. CIARD RING www.ciard.net/ring an infrastructure for interoperability of agricultural research information services Yellow pages for agricultural information services 9

14. how to tap into them

15. how to exploit their semantics10

17. http://agris.fao.org/ 12

18. Dspace @ IRRI http://dspace.irri.org:8080/dspace/ 13

19. Dspace @ ICRISAT http://dspace.icrisat.ac.in/dspace/ 14

20. agropedialabs.iitk.ac.in/Tagger/agrotagger_scientific.php agropedialabs.iitk.ac.in/Tagger/Agrotagger_text.php 15

21. AGROTags integrated into DSpace 16

23. The communities supported by FAO and UNESCO-IOC/IODE are synergistic and the standards on metadata and controlled vocabularies are similar for both.

24. Communities: AGRIS – ASFA - ODINS

25. Standards: Agris AP – MODS

26. Thesauri: AGROVOC – ASFA

27. Bigger user community (Distribution – support)17

29. AgriDrupal is the most appropriate tool to achieve the use of semantic standards and guarantee a proper and efficient exchange and sharing of information within the Food, Agriculture, Development, Fisheries, Forestry and Natural Resources communityhttp://aims.fao.org/community/group/agridrupal 18

30. Openagri http://agropedia.iitk.ac.in/openaccess/ 19

31. ePrints @ IARI http://eprints.iari.res.in/view/year/2010.html 20

33. Partners that register services in the RING are invited to display the RING logo21

34. Thank you! Gerard Sylvester gerard.sylvester@fao.org 22