GOALI - Research for Global Justice

Members of the Yale Law Library team, Diana Quinones and Yuksel Serindag participated in the just concluded Research4Life (R4L) General Partners' Meeting (GPM) in Nairobi, Kenya.  Research4Life, a partnership that includes academic partners, Cornell, Yale, and UN agencies, provides institutions in low-and middle-income countries with free or low cost online access to academic and professional peer-reviewed content.  The Nairobi meeting presented our two staff members with the unique opportunity to promote Global Online Access to Legal Information (GOALI), one of R4L’s content collections and our collaboration with the International Labour Organization and Brill Nijhoff.

Diana and Yuksel narrate what they describe as an incredible experience below:

This was the first time R4L held the annual GPM in a user country, allowing us to interact in-person with users of the R4L platform. Despite the current state of political unrest in Kenya, we were able to visit Aga Khan University with other GPM attendees, where we heard from faculty, librarians, and researchers who have relied heavily on R4L for their work. Two other planned site visits were canceled because of the unrest. While disappointing, we were able to arrange with local law schools to present information about GOALI. We spent a morning at Strathmore University Law School where researchers we met there knew the main library had access to HINARI, R4L's oldest program focused on medical resources. However, they were unaware that R4L had expanded over the years and that they also had access to legal information through GOALI.  The excitement was palpable, and they promised to share the information about GOALI with their students and peers in other institutions. 

One of the biggest challenges for R4L is a lack of awareness of the available resources, as we saw at Strathmore. This amazing platform provides access to over 200,000 resources, which thousands of institutions have access to. Still, it is useless unless eligible institutions know about the resources, how to access and use the collections.  In response to this challenge, R4L started a program in 2022 called Country Connectors, assigning individuals to several user countries to increase awareness about R4L resources and provide training. There are currently 11 country connectors, most of whom were able to attend the GPM in person. We had the opportunity to speak with them, learn more about their work, what they are hearing from users, and what is needed from R4L partners.

We left with the knowledge needed for effective outreach and to ensure that law schools within user institutions are properly informed about access to legal information resources on the GOAL platform. Attending the GPM in a user country was an inspiring experience that renewed our commitment to GOALI. If you would like to know more, hakuna matata, we’ll happily talk about GOALI with anyone willing to listen. :)
 

At Aga Khan University, with George Mwangi, Assistant Librarian,  far left with Diana Quinones and Yuksel Serindag, Yale Law Library

United Nations at Nairobi Office - R4L information table

At Strathmore University Law School, with Dr. Lynette Osiemo, Research Director; Wendy Nyakweba, Graduate Assistant, Research; Diana, Yuksel (Yale Law Library), and Malcolm Melita Kibati, Graduate Assistant, Partnerships