From Alberto García Guadarrama, eScire
In 2006, eScire’s group implemented the first repository in Mexico at the Colegio de Posgraduados – COLPOS (College of Postgraduates). 12 years later, eScire is working towards consolidating DSpace repositories as THE option, not only for graduate thesis archival, but also for storing institutions’ documents including: congress and posters communications, pre-prints, post-prints, audio-visual material, journals, patents, standards and regulations, learning materials, and more.
One of our strategies is offering free, online courses, where all academic and, in general, any institution, can easily learn about installing DSpace, workflow, customization and more. This has generated a lot of interest from all types of institutions, including national institutions such as Politécnico Nacional – IPN (National Polytechnic Institute), up to large and specialized institutions, like CONACYT (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia de México–National Council for Science and Technology of Mexico) Centres. We share information freely with all institutions and as a result, some have asked for more assistance, services, installation, training, consultancy, confirming DSpace as their preferred repository solution. One of our available resources is the YouTube Channel called CCV – Comunidad del Conocimiento Virtual (Virtual Knowledge Community) where we share all recorded webinars. Here you can find the list of free available webinars in Spanish.
Fig. 1. Response on the actual free webinars on open source software (Mexico & Latin America)
Another strategy is promoting and creating the first DSpace Users and Developers Community in Mexico. On September 10-11, 2018 eScire participated in Entre Pares 2018 (Between Peers). It is an annual seminar for publishers and librarians promoted by CONACYT in Mexico. This year it was held in Puebla (where eScire has its main office). This provided an excellent opportunity for us to reach out to most of our clients in Mexico. eScire hosted a welcome party on Sunday, September 9 and initiated the first Users and Developers Dspace Community in Mexico on September 11. Here you can find some photographs. About 42 attendees participated from CINVESTAV, IPN, UNAM, CIDETEQ, CIATEQ, ULSA, BUAP, UAM, CIBNOR, UMAD, CIESAS, UDG, UPAEP, UAT, UGTO, USON, UNICACH. All participants were interested in joining the community.