The CERN- UNESCO Schools on Digital Libraries initiative is a week-long training session for librarians and IT specialists at research institutions in Africa. These sessions are followed up by a more in-depth training for selected participants at CERN. Up to 30 participants learn how to replace expensive and quickly outdated hard copies of publications with digital versions, and to use up-to-date information technologies to promote the global sharing of information. In particular, participants are taught how to use the Invenio digital library software, a free open source tool for digital library management developed at CERN.

These Schools help participants become familiar with all principles related to open access and open knowledge, as well as giving practical solutions for setting up and running digital libraries. Our ambition is to enable increased access to information for African researchers, to make African research more visible to the rest of the world.