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document have been updated. Links enclosed in {curly
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Providing Access to Information on a Small Budget
Carla G. Heister
Librarian, Graves Memorial Library
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Yale University
carla.heister@yale.edu
Part 1
Introduction
The need for accurate and timely information does not stop when a student
leaves the university. Yet many of the graduates of the Yale School of
Forestry and Environmental Studies (FES), and other similar programs, go on to
careers in small or under-funded international organizations, consultant
groups, governmental agencies, local governments, or other entities that do
not have access to the vast resources provided by university libraries. There
is no access to Web of Knowledge (ISI), Environmental Sciences and Pollution
Management (CSA), Scopus (Elsevier), or CAB Abstracts (CABI). The exiting
students are left without access to all that they have found to be useful
during their academic studies. No longer can they easily find data and
literature to help them do research; no more is there easy access to print and
electronic journals.
Students in FES come from around the world and, after graduation, they scatter
just as widely as they came in (Yi 2000). The librarian for
FES saw a need for an organized tool to aid in access to free and low cost
electronic indexes to literature and full text journal articles that can be
used by the widely dispersed alumni population. Consequently, she has begun
building a resource list that can aid forestry, environmental studies, and
international development researchers in finding useful information. What
appears here is the most recent version of the list of web resources that she
has developed. For each website there is 1) title, 2) description, and 3) URL.
As with all attempts to classify and organize, some sources do not fit neatly
into only one classification. The organization is, therefore, a loose
designation for each resource listed.
Portals
Portals are defined as web sites that serve as entry points to a number of
separate information resources either within the same website or pointing out
to other websites.
- CIESIN: Center for International Earth Science Information Network
- Data related to human interactions in the environment. Provides interactive data access and mapping tools.
- http://www.ciesin.org
- Earthtrends: from the World Resources Institute
- Ten subject areas dealing with international development and the environment. Each contains databases, data tables, country profiles, maps, features.
- {http://www.wri.org/our-work/project/earthtrends-environmental-information}
- ECOLEX: combined sponsorship from FAO, IUCN, UNEP
- A gateway to environmental law.
- http://www.ecolex.org
- ELDIS: The Gateway to Development Information.
- Funded by Sida, NORAD, DFID, and SDC and developed and maintained by the
Institute of Development Studies, Sussex.
Contains over 15,000 e-documents.
- http://www.eldis.org
- Federal Science Information at FirstGov
- U.S. Federal Government science information. Two sites:
- Science.gov - gateway to 47 million pages of government science information.
http://www.science.gov
- SciTechResources.gov - catalog of government science and technology websites.
{http://www.scitech.gov}
- GDN: Global Development Network
- Founded by a global network of research and policy institutes. Provides portal access to many resources for developing countries.
- {http://www.gdnet.org/}
- GFIS: Global Forest Information Service
- An internet gateway to forest information resources development
coordinated by
IUFRO.
- http://www.gfis.net
- United Nations Publications and Databases
- Lists publications catalogue, e-publications, and UN databases.
- {http://www.un.org/en/databases/index.html}
- Water Resources Databases
- Lists textual, bibliographic, and numeric databases compiled by The Water Quality Information Center of USDA National Agricultural Library.
- {http://wqic.nal.usda.gov/databases-0}
Full Text
Sites that provide access to full text of journal and report literature
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- "This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific
and scholarly
journals." At present 2,141 journals are included with 583 of them searchable
on
the article level.
- http://www.doaj.org
- TreeSearch
- Searchable database of USDA Forest Service Research Station
scientists'
publications that are available electronically on the web.
- http://treesearch.fs.fed.us
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Publications Online
- Provides a running alphabetical list of electronic documents
available. Searchable
only through the web browser's search function.
- http://library.fws.gov/pubs3.html
- OAIster
- Collection of freely available, academically-oriented digital resources. Over 7 million records from 610 institutions.
- {http://www.oclc.org/oaister.en.html}
- Water Quality Information Center Online Documents
- Full text documents covering water and agriculture from the USDA NAL Water Quality Information Center.
- {https://www.nal.usda.gov/waic/publications}
- Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands
- Covers research areas: biomass, clean fossil fuels, energy efficiency in industry, fuel cell technology, policy studies, renewable energy in the build environment, solar energy, and wind energy.
- {http://www.ecn.nl/publications/}
- FAO Virtual Library
- Search either the Publications Catalogue or the Online publications of FAO.
- {http://www.fao.org/publications/en/}
- BLDS: British Library for Development Studies E-Library
- Collection of full text e-resources on economic and social change in developing countries. Choose either e-journals (lists only free internet editions) or online series.
- {http://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/123456789/3}
- PubMed Central
- A digital archive of full text medical literature.
- {https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/}
Bibliographic Databases
Subject Specific
- AGRICOLA
- The freely accessible catalog of the National Agriculture Library. Divided
into a book catalog and an article database which can now be searched at the
same time. The two databases together replicate the commercial versions.
- http://agricola.nal.usda.gov/
- ERIC: Education Resources Information Center
- A U.S. federally developed database with over 1 million citations;
includes over
90,000 citations on environmental education.
- http://www.eric.ed.gov
- Finding Environmental Impact Statements (EIS)
- A listing of U.S. Environmental Impact Statements developed and
maintained by
Northwestern University, Transportation Library.
- http://www.library.northwestern.edu/transportation/searcheis.html
- FishBase
- "Global information system with all you ever wanted to know about
fishes."
- http://www.fishbase.org/search.php
- USDA Forest Service FSInfo
- The combined catalog of all of the U.S. Forest Service Research Stations' Libraries.
- {https://usfs.iii.com:7443/search/query?theme=USFS}
- University of Minnesota Forestry Library
- The Forestry Library maintains for four databases.
- Social Sciences in Forestry
- Trail Planning
- Tropical Forest Conservation and Development
- Urban Forestry
- http://forestry.lib.umn.edu/index.phtml
- IDEAS: Economics and Finance Research
- This database of over 350,000 items includes over 250,000 items
available for
free download. Includes forestry, environmental, and development
documents.
- http://ideas.repec.org
- NTIS: National Technical Information Service
- Database of science-based research reports of research funded by U.S.
Federal
Government.
- http://www.ntis.gov/search/
- PubMed
- A database of medical literature.
- http://www.pubmed.gov
- ReefBase
- "A global information system on Coral Reefs."
- http://www.reefbase.org
- TOXNET
- A suite of toxicology databases that also includes information on
hazardous chemicals, environmental health, and toxic releases.
- http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov
- TranStats
- A U.S. Dept. of Transportation website which offers"one stop shopping" for
transportation data.
- http://www.transtats.bts.gov
- TRIS: Transportation Research Information Service
- The U.S. Dept. of Transportation database of transportation research. Contains environmental and urban development literature.
- {https://trid.trb.org/}
Bibliographic Databases
General
- Find Articles
- Commercial yet free database with millions of articles from
academic, industry,
and popular journals.
- http://www.findarticles.com
- Google Scholar
- This megasite is still in beta test version. Provides links to free
and restricted
access material.
- http://scholar.google.com
- GPO Access Catalog of U.S. Government Publications
- Includes archive of old publications as well as current; also links
those that are
online.
- http://Catalog.gpo.gov/F
- Scirus: for scientific information only
- A public database from Elsevier that provides searching of
peer-reviewed
literature and of websites. Some free access items, some pay-per-view.
- http://www.scirus.com
- UN Dag Hammarskjold Library
- Main library of the United Nations.
- http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/
Pay-per-View Services
Can search the bibliographic database freely; must pay to get full text
- Ingenta
- 19,824,261 items (as of March 27, 2006); for-profit venture.
- http://www.ingenta.com
- Highwire
- 1,322,897 free, full text articles from 264 journals. Total of 3,272,294
articles
from 924 journals (indexed as of March 27, 2006). Based at Stanford
University.
- http://highwire.stanford.edu/
Part II
PART I of this paper presented a preliminary list of information sources for a
future electronic information portal to aid forestry, environmental studies,
and international development researchers. While these resources are all
useful, the in-depth researcher needs access to one type of resource more than
any other, namely, the high-impact, peer-reviewed periodical/journal
literature from major publishers.
From the beginnings of the post-World War II information explosion librarians
and information scientists have discussed and debated the changing face of
information storage, retrieval, and accessibility, from Bush’s Memex (Bush 1945), through Lancaster’s concept of paperless information
systems (Lancaster 1978), to the information-rich
information-poor dichotomy (Kagan 1999; Kagan
1998; Parker 1970). Out of the discussions and debates
have come initiatives that share the common purpose of helping developing
nations, and the educational and research institutions within them, to access
necessary research literature.
These initiatives are based on two models. The models have been developed to
help get information to flow to and from researchers in developing countries.
The earlier model was to help the developing countries establish their own
scientific publications so that the research done in country can be
disseminated throughout the world. The later model was to provide low cost or
free access to the peer-reviewed journal literature of the world.
In 1992, the International Council for Science established a program aimed "to
improve access to information and knowledge through a commitment to capacity
building in emerging and developing countries" (International
network for the availability of scientific publication 2006). This
program, the International Network for the Availability of Scientific
Publications (INASP), developed the first of the two models discussed here.
INASP has helped developing countries establish their own scientific
publications so that the in-country scientists can disseminate their own
research results (Scientific communication and publishing in
the information age 1999). Thus, the INASP collaborative has been
working to aid the local researchers' work in these countries. It has provided
assistance in establishing publications programs and in disseminating the
research results globally through electronic means.
The second model is represented by three initiatives, two established science
initiatives, the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI)
(Aronson & Glover 2005/12), and Access to Global Online
Research in Agriculture (AGORA) (Vent 2005), and the third,
the newly established Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) (Grants will give developing world access to scientific
research 2006). These three initiatives are examples of what can be
done to provide large-scale electronic access to the world’s best journal
literature to developing countries either at little or no cost. In these
models, partnerships among major journal publishers, academic institutions,
and international organizations have provided access to thousands of high
quality journal titles, over 3,000 for HINARI and over 800 for AGORA. OARE is
still in negotiations with publishers so no number is available. In addition,
INASP also has worked through its project, PERI, to contract for low cost
access to high quality journals for individual countries in the developing
world.
In this second model, a set of countries was selected based in World Bank
categories (World Bank Low Income) to receive access to the journals free of
charge. Then after the initial access was established and the service shown to
be stable and secure, another tier of countries was added. This second tier
was made up of countries with a higher per capita income, those designated by
the World Bank as Lower Middle Income. With the second tier, a fee ($1000) is
to be paid by any participating organization (non-profit university, hospital,
or research center) annually for access to the entire collection (Long 2006).
These two models should now start working together to facilitate the flow of
information both ways. The local scientific research should be published in
strong, healthy regional scientific publications, and local scientific
researchers should be able to have the benefit of access to internationally
published research. Both of these forms of access to information are important
for equality of knowledge acquisition. They are necessary to break the
information-rich information-poor dichotomy.
References
Aronson, B., & Glover, S. 2005. Journal
access initiatives: Where are they? why the world health organization? and
what is HINARI?
Serials Review 31(4): 279-283.
Bush, V. 1945. As we may think. The
Atlantic Monthly 176(1): 101-108.
Grants will give developing world access to scientific research. 2006. [Online] Available: {http://web.archive.org/web/20051230051326/http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/05-12-22-04.all.html} [March 30, 2006].
International network for the availability of scientific publications. 2006. [Online] Available: {http://www.inasp.info/} [March 29, 2006].
Kagan, A. 1998. The electronic
information gap No. 5. Amsterdam: IFLA.
Kagan, A., ed. 1999. The growing gap
between the information rich and the information poor, both within countries
and between countries: A composite policy paper (IFLA SRDG Paper No. 7).
Bangkok: IFLA.
Lancaster, F. W. 1978. Toward paperless
information systems. New York: Academic Press.
Long, M. 2006. Re: OARE project funded at
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[April 5, 2006].
Parker, E. 1970. Information utilities and
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Vent, O. 2005. TEEAL and AGORA: Improving
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Yi, R. 2000, February 14. Traditional study of silviculture struggles with new Yale programs in environmental studies. [Online] Yale Daily News. Available: {http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=4599} [June 28, 2006].