Publishing and Alternative Licensing Models in Africa (PALM Africa) has been a two-country research programme conducted in South Africa and Uganda, using action research to explore the potential of open access and flexible and open intellectual property licences with the aim of enhancing the impact ... of African publishing. more

"Charts the planning and implementation of a digital publishing programme over a three-year period at the Human Sciences Research Council, a large South African social science research body. The case study is contextualised in the need to overcome the digital divide to give African scholars a real v ... oice in the global community. It deals with the challenges faced by African scholarly publishers and organizations wanting to use digital media to disseminate their research findings: the importance of strategic choices, finding the right mix of technologies, managing the technical and organizational process of getting a digital publishing programme up and running, and putting effective promotional and distribution strategies in place to ensure the success of a digital publishing programme. The case study also examines how applicable its findings are to other countries in Africa and, in particular, explores the limitations of digital dissemination in a South African context and identifies the ways in which a multi-pronged approach, using digital, print, e-mail and fax, can most effectively reach a wider market. It concludes that such a multi-pronged approach can be an effective way of ensuring the international reach of Africa scholarship." (Hans M. Zell, Publishing, Books & Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa, 3d ed. 2008, nr. 2069) more