One of the mandates of the University of Namibia is to advance and disseminate knowledge, and so contribute to the social and economic development of Namibia. In fulfilling this mandate the University established an open access Institutional Repository.

According to e-Resources Librarian at the University’s Information & Learning Resource Centre, Anna Leonard, the purpose of the UNAM Repository is to “provide open access to institutional research output and make the local content easily accessible”, to advance research nationally, inform national policy decision making and for personal development and knowledge enhancement of individuals.

“The Institutional Repository aims to create global visibility for the University’s scholarly publications, store and preserve the institutional intellectual output and other institutional digital assets, such as research reports and un-published thesis and dissertations,” Anna explains. The UNAM institutional repository can be accessed and searched at: www.repository.unam.edu.na.

The Institutional Repository hosts among others, all-current UNAM published journals, thesis and dissertations, internationally published articles by UNAM researchers, books, book chapters, conference papers and proceedings, as well as technical reports. These publications can be accessed from any computer and mobile device free of charge.

Since its establishment, the UNAM Repository has been widely accessed and searched from across the globe. Anna shared that “as of 2014 to date about 1,178,586 publications have been downloaded/read from the repository.” These downloads come from different countries, mainly China, UK, USA, Namibia and many other African countries.