Aug. 14, 2014

Read it online: http://bit.ly/1rE2cKe

CALL for Expressions of Interest in Hosting the Annual Open Repositories Conference, 2016

The Open Repositories Steering Committee seeks Expressions of Interest from candidate host organizations for the 2016 Open Repositories Annual Conference. Proposals from all geographic areas will be given consideration.

Important dates
The Open Repositories Steering Committee is accepting Expressions of Interest to host the OR2016 conference until August 24th 2014. Shortlisted sites will be notified before the end of September 2014.

Background
Candidate institutions must have the ability to host a four-day conference of approximately 300-500 attendees (OR2014 held recently in Helsinki, Finland drew more than 450 people). This includes appropriate access to conference facilities, lodging, and transportation, as well as the ability to manage a range of supporting services (food services, internet services, and conference social events; conference web site; management of registration and online payments; etc.). The candidate institutions and their local arrangements committee must have the means to support the costs of producing the conference through attendee registration and independent fundraising. Fuller guidance is provided in the Open Repositories Conference Handbook on the Open Repositories wiki.

Expressions of Interest Guidelines
Organisations interested in proposing to host the OR2016 conference should follow the steps listed below:
 
1. Expressions of Interest (EoIs) must be received by August 24th, 2014. Please direct these EoIs and any enquiries to OR Steering Committee Chair Carol Minton Morris <[log in to unmask]>. 

2.  As noted above, the Open Repositories wiki has a set of pages at Open Repositories Conference Handbook which offer guidelines for organizing an Open Repositories conference. Candidate institutions should pay particular attention to the pages listed at "Preparing a bid" before submitting an EoI.

3.  The EoI must include:
• the name of the institution (or institutions in the case of a joint bid)
• an email address as a first point of contact
• the proposed location for the conference venue with a brief paragraph describing • the local amenities that would be available to delegates, including its proximity to a reasonably well-served airport

4. The OR Steering Committee will review proposals and may seek advice from additional reviewers.  Following the review, one or more institutions will be invited to submit a detailed proposal.

5.  Invitations to submit a detailed proposal will be issued before the end of September 2014; institutions whose interest will not be taken up will also be notified at that time. The invitations sent out will provide a timeline for submitting a formal proposal and details of additional information available to the shortlisted sites for help in the preparation of their bid. The OR Steering Committee will be happy to answer specific queries whilst proposals are being prepared.

About Open Repositories
Since 2006 Open Repositories has hosted an annual conference that brings together users and developers of open digital repository platforms. For further information about Open Repositories and links to past conference sites, please visit the OR home page: http://sites.tdl.org/openrepositories/.
Subscribe to announcements about Open Repositories conferences by joining the OR Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/open-repositories.
Please feel free to reflect this call for Expressions of Interest out through your communities.

Thank you!
The Open Repositories Conference Steering Committee