To support PERI and other INASP activities, we undertake research projects to investigate new methodologies for accessing, managing and using information, and methods of improving existing systems.

Optimising bandwidth in research and higher education

This research was commissioned by INASP in 2003 in response to concerns of partner organisations in Africa, Asia and Latin America that their use of costly Internet bandwidth was not as effective as it could be. The report was prepared with input from eight countries (from Africa, Asia and Europe), and has been written for three main audiences – senior management, librarians and IT managers. Both the full report and a short InfoBrief that summarises the issues are available on the INASP website.

As a result of these research activities, a programme of workshops and training activities will be delivered in this area. Trageted at optimising the use of bandwidth and focused on each of the three main groups mentioned above, a collection of bandwidth optimisation workshops and training materials are under development. A press release explaining the background to these is also available.

Search tools for low bandwidth environments

Participants in PERI now have a wide range of resources available to them online – however finding relevant content remains a time-consuming and skilled operation. To maximise the use of limited and costly internet connections, and provide an efficient searching mechanism INASP has linked with Lund University Libraries, Sweden, to adapt the Electronic Library Information Navigator (ELIN@) for use by organisations in developing countries.

ELIN@ provides a technology solution in cooperation with a wide range of publishers and information providers, using a single interface to search across multiple resources. The resources available can be tailored to ensure they comply with the licenses and access rights of the organisations.

The development of the current ELIN@ application will optimise it for (s)lower bandwidth environments. It will be tested in several different situations in Africa and Asia. If the pilot proves to be successful, an open source version will be made available for free downloading and use by libraries in developing countries.

Further information outlining the technical details and pilot programme implementation is now available.

For more information about any of these initiatives, contact