African Digital Library
Established by Technikon South Africa's Centre for Lifelong Learning, in collaboration with the Association of African Universities http://www.aau.org/  this is a free public library for users in Africa (only) who have access to the Internet. Over 60 publishers will provide full-text books, and at this point the library contains 3,000 titles. Encryption will ensure that only one user will access a book at any one time, and loan periods will be a few hours as users work with the books. Before you can start using the service you will need to complete an application form to open a free account, and which will include a username and password. http://www.AfricaEducation.org/adl/

African Digital Library. West African Digital Resources
Set up by research teams at Michigan State University (and the MSU Library and African Studies Center) in collaboration with the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire (IFAN) and the West African Research Centre (WARC), this project seeks to develop a multi-media digital library of West African sources in multiple languages. It will aim to establish a model for creating and distributing a diverse array of materials, in different formats, in a region with still very limited electronic connectivity
http://www.AfricanDL.org/ 

African Virtual University (AVU)
Interactive-instructional telecommunications network for the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, designed to use modern information technology to increase access to educational resources throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. http://www.avu.org/

AGRICOLA
Provides on-line access to the vast database of bibliographical records of the National Agricultural Library and its co-operators; search and browse for books, serials publications, and the journal article citation index. Will eventually contain more than 3.5 million records. http://www.nal.usda.gov/ag98/

ASAE-Associations Online
A service provided by the American Society of Association Executives, this directory and database lets you search for almost 6,600 US professional associations, directly linked to each association's home page. Search by association name (or fragment of name), or by category/keyword.
http://info.asaenet.org/gateway/OnlineAssocSlist.html 

Base de Dados Tropical/Tropical Data Base (BDT)
BDT is a department within the Fundação de Pesquisas e Tecnologia André Tosello, a Brazilian private foundation providing bioinformatics facilities and access to various databases and Internet resources. http://www.bdt.org.br/

Database of African Theses and Dissertations (DATAD)
An initiative by the Association of African Universities, in association with the Nairobi-based Project for Information Access and Connectivity (PIAC) Sue: please add (hidden) html , and supported by a number of donor organizations, the DATAD database to be established will provide a comprehensive source for African theses and dissertations. Each record in the database will include full bibliographic information, including contact information for the university, degree and date, a statement of availability, abstract, and keywords. The database will be on CD-ROM as well as accessible on the Web and in print format. The site provides access to the complete Feasibility Study Report and reports about progress to date of this ambitious project. http://www.aau.org/datad/

Infonation
A service from the United Nations, this two-step database allows you to view and compare the most up-to-date statistical data for the member states of the UN. Select up to seven countries from the list at anyone time, and thereafter choose up to four data fields set out under four major headings, geography, economy, population, social indicators, each with a range of sub-headings, for example under 'Social indicators': illiteracy rate, school enrolment, spending on education, newspaper circulation, etc. Very useful. http://www.un.org/Pubs/CyberSchoolBus/infonation/e_i_count.htm

Jointly Administered Knowledge Environment (Jake)
A volunteer-run project, Jake is as a handy reference source that makes finding, managing, and linking online journals and journal articles easier for researchers, students and librarians. Jake does this "by managing metadata about online resources with a database union list, title authority control, and linking tools, as well as making it easy to customize it for a specific library's holdings. Put simply, Jake makes it easy to create software which needs to reference journals and online journal products." The project started in April 1999, and there are currently 195 databases with content lists in Jake. In addition to tracking down articles in a journal (with either complete or incomplete citation), its search facility allows you to search by, e.g. journal title or ISSN, to find out which indexing services or databases cover the content of that journal title. This in turn could lead you to other journals that cover subjects of your interest. More explanations about the use of the database is provided on the Jake site, and there are also two mailing lists intended for open discussion amongst those using Jake. http://www.jake-db.org/ 

Note: 
For more information about Jake see also an article "Jake: overview and status report", by Kimberly Parker, Cynthia Crooker, and Dan Chudnow, which was published in Serials Review 26(4): 12-17, 2000, freely downloadable as a pdf file (307kb) at
http://Jake.med.yale.edu/docs/Jake-overview-serrev.pdf. 

Kidon Media-Link
Kidon Media-Link, set up by a small Dutch media company, is a remarkably comprehensive database of newspapers and other news sources on the Internet, and which includes magazines, television, radio, news agencies, and more. In addition to a very substantial number of entries for the Americas and Europe, there is also good coverage of newspapers, magazines and news agencies from Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
http://www.kidon.com/media-link/index.shtml  

New York Times Book Review 
The New York Times, one of the world's leading newspapers, can now be accessed for free, and this includes the NYT Books sections, with an archive of over 50,000 reviews published since 1980; fully searchable. http://www.nytimes.com/books/

Online Computer Library Center Inc. (OCLC)
A library computer service and research organization dedicated to furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs. With links to OCLC Latin America/Caribbean and OCLC Asia pacific. http://www.oclc.org/home/ 

Svenska Akademien/Swedish Academy
Find information here about all the Nobel Prize laureates by prize category (physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, literature, and peace) and year; also all past press releases about Nobel winners, biographical profiles, photographs, and Nobel lectures. http://svenskaakademien.se/eng/

Universities Worldwide
A searchable database of 5,964 universities and their Web sites in 167 countries, including a substantial number in the countries of the South. Search, or select by country. Maintained by Klaus Föster at the Department of Geography at the University of Innbruck, and originally based on the World List of Universities 1997, published by the International Association of Universities (IAU). 
http://geowww.uibk.ac.at/univ/ 

Visual Arts Data Service (VADS)/African and Asian Visual Artists Archive (AAVAA)
Hosted by the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College, is a freely accessible collection of visual arts digital resources, allowing access to nearly 12,000 cross-searchable visual arts images for use in research, learning, and teaching. It includes the African and Asian Visual Artists Archive (AAVAA), containing nearly 2,000 digital images, and which is the most comprehensive slide archive of contemporary visual art by artists of African and Asian descent working the UK since the post-war period.
http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/ 

Wright American Fiction Project
Hosted by the Indiana University Digital Library Program this cooperative project makes 19th century American fiction widely available online. It is based on Lyle Wright's bibliography American Fiction, 1851-1875. More than 1,700 full-text works of fiction of this period are now online, freely accessible on the Internet, and are fully searchable. http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/web/w/wright2/ 
 

YourDictonary.com
One of the most comprehensive directories to online dictionaries, wordlists, grammars and other data on languages. Includes a substantial number of links to dictionaries in African and Asian languages. http://www.yourdictionary.com

This page was last updated on: 07 July 2003 © International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) 1998-2003.