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Features: African Medical Librarians Discuss Challenges and Benefits of E-resources

African Medical Librarians Discuss Challenges and Benefits of E-resources
By Tony McSeán, Director of Library Relations, Elsevier, London, UK

The Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa stages a biennial conference bringing together leading medical librarians in sub-Saharan Africa. The recent 10th AHILA Congress in Kenya was no exception to the organization’s conferences over the years; attendees overcame complex difficulties to attend, sessions drew enthusiastic participation and break times saw keen discussion of professional issues.

As I participated in last month’s conference, as a presenter and attendee, I felt a striking perception of Africa as a real entity with a strong identity crossing linguistic and cultural divides. Also, I noticed a story emerge: the story of e-resources becoming more readily accessible in Africa but still not accessible enough.

Hot Issues Roundup

The relaunch of African Index Medicus was big news at the conference. This online resource comprises an A&I tool for all medical literature (scholarly in the broadest sense) published in Africa. Though coordinated by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO/AFRO), the work is done by volunteer-staffed national centers submitting data in a standard format for consolidation. This is an amazing achievement given the practical difficulties that have to be overcome.

Other issues discussed included:

• Outreach from the cities into rural areas. We can all learn from partnerships some of the universities are forming with public libraries to repackage patient information and public health information for delivery in the outback.
• New health threats in Africa, e.g., obesity and cardiovascular disease resulting from pseudo-Western lifestyles combined with African-grade poverty.

The Reach of Online Access

Lack of money and resources still prevails in sub-Saharan Africa, so exchange of information tends to emphasize what can be found for little or no money, and how to make inadequate sums go far.

When it comes to bandwidth, time and technology have to an extent eliminated technical and physical problems. But now it’s cost-limited. Bandwidth remains impossibly expensive in many parts of Africa, and there are real-life impacts. For example, a colleague at Uganda’s Makerere University says it can take four minutes to open a text email.

Regarding HINARI, the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative, it's impossible to overstate its impact on African medical libraries or the need to keep its support strong. During the conference, HINARI was credited with making possible the introduction of evidence-based medicine into Africa. However, the total use of HINARI from within Africa is less than equivalent e-journal use by the Christie Hospital and North Manchester General Hospital Trust in England.

Elsevier's Role

In his address to the AHILA general assembly, outgoing President Ibrahima Bob paid eloquent tribute to contributions made to the development of African medical libraries by organizations outside the continent. He singled out the contributions of three organizations as particularly worthy of note: the World Health Organization, the US National Library of Medicine and Elsevier.

It's satisfying to remember that in the past year Elsevier has donated $800,000 worth of books to African libraries, has funded HINARI training sessions in electronic resources and has played a leading role in the development of the HINARI, AGORA and OARE programs.

For more on Elsevier’s commitment to HINARI, as well as AGORA and OARE, see below and page 16.