Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR): Working Towards a Global Repository Network

The Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) is a young association of international range founded in October 2009, uniting over 60 institutions and organizations from 24 countries (incl. Asia, North- and South-America). Its mission is to enhance greater visibility and application of research outputs through global networks of open access digital repositories. COAR’s main objectives are to:

•       Raise the profile of repositories through a strong organization with an authoritative voice;

•       Ensure interoperability of repositories, e.g. by providing guidelines to repository managers and aggregators;

•       Populate repositories with content, e.g. by sharing success stories or working with publishers to standardize self-archiving policies and publisher deposit processes;

•       Support regional and national repository initiatives, e.g. by giving practical support to their regional or national repository helpdesks or repository networks;

•       Promote the repository manager profession.

To address these aims COAR has established three working groups and collaborates with related organizations and projects, such as LIBER, SPARC(s), IFLA and the European OpenAIRE project. The poster presents COAR’s aims and activities in order to promote opportunities for collaboration.