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Availability of Scientific Publications |
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In this issue:
Newsletter Editor: Ard Jongsma Contributors to this
issue: Peter N Campbell, Jayshree Mamtora, Ana Marusic, Matko
Marusic, Jeff Smith, Peter Walton.
The next Newsletter will be published in May 1996. If you would
like to contribute to its contents or publicise your project,
please write to the editorial address on the front page of this
newsletter. Contributions must be received by 1 April 1996.
The information needs of the islands of the South Pacific are
specific and probably unprecedented elsewhere. Their size and the
corresponding biological and geographical characteristics make
exchange of information an even more urgent matter than in many
other places on this planet and problematic when the partners in
an information network are separated from each other by thousands
and thousands of square miles of water... The natural barrier has
only been properly conquered in the last few decades with the
introduction of wireless information transmission technologies.
But now it works, and better than ever before, writes Jayshree
Mamtora from Fiji.
The South Pacific region covers 30 million square kilometres of
ocean an area comparable to the combined land area of Europe, the
United States, Canada and Australia. The land area of the twenty
two island states and territories of the region (also known as
the South Pacific Commission countries) occupies less than 2 per
cent of the ocean area.
The University of the South Pacific (USP) is a regional
university established in 1968 to serve the needs of eleven
countries in the region: Fiji, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru,
Niue, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and
Western Samoa. Marshall Islands has since joined as the twelfth
member. Although not members, the Maldives and the Federated
States of Micronesia regularly send students to the USP.
In addition to providing a service to the University community,
the main campus library based in Suva, Fiji, has attempted to
respond to the information needs of the wider South Pacific
region. Furthermore it has assumed roles normally performed by a
national or special library. These activities include
identification and collection of regional publications,
production of regional biblio-graphies, acting as a depository,
establishment and operation of an ISBN Centre; and provision of
regional library services.
Many of these activities have been undertaken by the Library
Pacific Information Centre (PIC), and more recently by its
Pacific Islands Marine Resources Information System (PIMRIS). In
1982, with funding from the International Development Research
Centre in Canada, PIC evolved from the Regional Bibliographic
Centre which had been set up three years earlier. PIC's main
objective is to identify, collect and record published and
unpublished materials originating in the South Pacific region, or
about the region, to ensure a complete collection of the region's
publishing output. This information provides the base for PIC's
major publications such as the South Pacific Bibliography.
Now a biennial publication, the Bibliography has become an
important tool for libraries in the region. It serves as a guide
not only for acquisitions, but also for cataloguing and
classification purposes. Libraries and researchers outside the
South Pacific region also depend on it for selection of Pacific
material, which is often otherwise difficult to trace. Other
major PIC publications include the South Pacific Periodicals
Index and the South Pacific Research Register. Special
bibliographies are also produced by PIC from time to time. Titles
include: Environmental Issues in the South Pacific: a
Bibliography; Nuclear Issues in the South Pacific: a
Bibliography; Preliminary Bibliography on Traditional Science and
Technology in the Pacific.
The role of focal points that together make up the PIC network is
to assist in the collection of material originating in the
region. The PIC network is not restricted to USP member countries
but extends to the wider region. PIC attempts to maintain contact
with its focal points not only through its quarterly newsletter
but also through satellite meetings to discuss and exchange
ideas. The once annual PIC Advisory Committee Meetings have,
unfortunately, not taken place since 1991, when Canadian funding
ceased. However the publication activities of the centre
continue, and indeed grow.
Responding to a regional information need, the PIMRIS
Coordinating Unit was established in 1989 under the umbrella of
PIC. Once again funding was made available from Canada, this time
through the International Center for Ocean Development. The
primary mandate of PIMRIS was to develop a regional information
service for fisheries and marine resources. This entails the
organised collection, bibliographic recording and dissemination
of information about marine resources in the region; the
production of a series of publications including specialised
bibliographies and a quarterly newsletter; provision of
professional advice and training in the establishment and
organisation of departmental libraries.PIMRIS publications
include: Fiji Fisheries Bibliography, A Selected Bibliography on
Seaweed Aquaculture Research and Development, Bibliography on
Marine Pollution Problems in the Pacific Islands.
PIMRIS operates as a cooperative network in association with the
Forum Fisheries Agency, the South Pacific Commission and the
South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission. Just as PIC attempts
to meet regional information needs rather than restrict its
activities to USP member countries, PIMRIS also responds to
requests for information or assistance from the whole of the
South Pacific region.
Further information about PIC and PIMRIS may be obtained from:
Jayshree Mamtora
Pacific Information Centre
University of the South Pacific Library
P.O. Box 1168 Suva
FIJI
Fax: + 679 300830
E-mail: [email protected]
'... even in the best of circumstances, more often than
not, the wrong information in the wrong forms goes to the wrong
people ...'
For our regular feature small-scale and targeted we looked this
time for a charity operating in South East Asia. Not much to our
surprise they were hard to find. We did however come across a
charity in Oakland, California which raised our interest. The
Bridge to Asia Foundation (BtA) organises donations of books and
journals to mostly China, the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The entry we have in our directory raised some questions with
which we approached the foundation.
In the following article Jeff Smith, President of BtA explains
how Bridge to Asia avoid disposing of excess inventory when they
are largely dependent on donations from used-book wholesalers,
which mechanisms they use for the collection of data on
recipients' requests, and who BtA receive funding from. His
extensive answer seems of interest to anyone sending regular
donations to wherever in the world. The final paragraph gives a
summary of the lessons BtA have learned since they started
operations '2.5 million books ago'. A good one to remember for
many of us.
We try to avoid simply disposing of excess inventory by asking
recipients to advise us frequently and frankly about problems
with whatever materials we provide, and adjust subsequent
shipments as they advise us. We have done this sort of
fine-tuning of donations for more than eight years and continue
doing so, educating our donors in the process. This feedback
enables us to track the shifts in interest among recipients, as
well as to avoid the waste of materials and resources that is
typical of the book donation process.
The question as you put it seems to assume that used book
wholesalers do not provide useful materials.We think donations
from used college book wholesalers are superior in content value
and diversity to donations we have seen from most publishers.
Used college book wholesalers buy and sell titles in common use
at major universities, and the textbooks they give to us capture
the contents of most university subjects and represent a rich
sampling of course contents. If we were to seek titles in the
arts and sciences from one publisher or another, we would be less
likely to receive as many useful materials.
Another way to answer the question is to emphasise that we work
in Asia, and mostly in China where more than 300 million people
use English at some level. The numbers of Chinese who do, as well
as their fluency levels, are increasing. So there is a great and
growing demand for English language books and other materials. We
distribute our donations through the university system of the
State Education Commission, and reach some 400-500 schools and
other end-users that include scientific and technical schools,
'liberal arts' universities, research centres, and others. The
materials we send, which we match to the needs of users as well
as we can, are eagerly received by this number and diversity of
recipients.
The three distribution centres which we use in China are the
libraries of major research universities. They receive donations
from us in the form of container-loads of approximately 10,000
books each. The centres sort and shelve the books by subject. In
the past, lists of titles were sent to potential recipients who
ordered books by fax or paper mail. The centres no longer produce
donation lists, but alert potential recipients by phone or mail
regarding the arrival of shipments, and recipients appear in
person at the centre(s) to select their books.
Our work is funded by private foundations, U.S. and Chinese
government agencies, corporations and individuals. Recipients who
can afford to do so pay small transfer fees to help cover the
costs of freight and in-country distribution. As the number and
scope of our projects increase (we are now using the Internet to
do much of our work, through several 'information-transfer
stations'» in fields critical to development, sending
information electronically rather than in paper forms), the
fundraising challenge has increased, and we have recruited
several experienced volunteers to help with fund development.
The essential lesson we have learned from sending 1.5 million
books and other materials to China, and more than 1 million to
other countries in South-east Asia, is that donated books and
journals are a weak solution to the information gap. Inevitably,
as hard as one tries to avoid it, donations and the donation
process itself are determined or controlled primarily by donors'
interests and orientations rather than by recipients' needs. We
have also found that there are few standards in this field, and
that most programmes and personnel include generalists rather
than specialists (while we think graduate and professional
training are essential to conceive and implement effective
projects), and that even in the best of circumstances, more often
than not, the wrong information in the wrong forms goes to the
wrong people. The number of groups which do this work well is
small only a handful of programmes known to us perform worthwhile
service while the needs for information in developing countries
continue to mount.
Jeff Smith
President, Bridge to Asia
For more information contact:
Bridge to Asia Foundation
1214 Webster Street, Suite F
Oakland CA 94612
USA
Tel: + 1 510 834 3081
Fax: + 1 510 834 0962
Bridge to Asia provides informational materials, and research
and document-delivery services, to institutions and individuals
in developing countries in Asia.
The organisational goals are to transfer information and
knowledge, not to dispose of publishers' excess inventory and to
place control of the information transfer process with users.
Countries presently being served include China, the Philippines,
Cambodia and Vietnam. Others soon to be included are Laos,
Mongolia, Indonesia, Burma, and possibly countries in Eastern
Europe and the former Soviet Union.
To procure hard-copy materials, Bridge to Asia largely relies on
donations by used book wholesalers, and on donations by US
professional and academic organisations.
To distribute materials Bridge to Asia uses centres in China, the
Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam that reach some 500 recipient
universities, libraries and schools. The centres are managed by
librarians and staff of the State Education Commission of China,
Bridge to Asia/Philippines, Phnom Penh University, Hanoi
University, and others.
Recipients contact the centres in person or by correspondence to
select materials, and some centres charge transfer fees to
recover their costs.
In a new effort, Bridge to Asia is creating several
Internet-based 'information-transfer stations' that help to
provide users in China and other countries with electronic access
to information resources worldwide.
(Extract from INASP Directory 1995)
The European Union supports agricultural research in the
Pacific region through 11 projects of the Pacific Regional
Agricultural Programme (PRAP). One of these projects, operating
under the obscure code name PRAP Project 9 Agricultural
Information Support was designed to improve access to and
utilisation of agricultural information. Peter Walton assists
with setting up the program and in this article describes its
aims and objectives.
The main objective of Project 9 is to improve access to and use
of agricultural information in the eight countries in the region
that are signatories to the Lomé Convention (the so-called
Pacific ACP states).
Project countries are Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon
Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Western Samoa. It is
anticipated that by the end of the Project in April 1998, there
will be a radical improvement in provision of well-equipped,
well-organised, well-managed agricultural libraries, bright,
cheerful, helpful information centres, better trained staff
(including staff able to train others), more capable users, more
plentiful, more timely scientific publications, especially in
agricultural journals, and more appropriate, more plentiful
extension-type publications that truly extend the results of
scientific research to the farmers and growers in the region.
A series of national agricultural librarians workshops will begin
in early November (in Fiji). One of the concerns the workshop
will address is lack of awareness of agricultural publications
available locally and in the region. For example, there is, in
general, poor access to agricultural textbooks for secondary and
tertiary students. The books are not available in local
bookshops. Those textbooks that are stocked tend to be
inappropriate.
By not only having publishers' catalogues but also display copies
of recommended textbooks at the workshops, librarians and
agriculture teachers will be introduced to the available
literature.
A compendium of guidelines, procedures and advice for
agricultural libraries and information centres is being put
together by the Project to demonstrate its commitment to
transferring suitable technologies.
The compendium will be published as a small, practical handbook
in 1996, but a loose-leaf version will be maintained for all
collaborating sites to ensure that everyone is kept up to date.
The Project is concerned that the results of agricultural
research in the region have been poorly documented. All three
agricultural journals published in the region are seldom
up-to-date and appear only irregularly. In part this is because
of institutional difficulties (funding, staff) but mostly it is
because of a lack of confidence in presenting the results of
scientific research in such a public arena as a journal or as a
published technical report.
Considerable emphasis will be given by the Project on improving
the skills and confidence of Pacific scientists in writing
scientific and technical papers and reports. Scientific writing
workshops will be held at national level during the next 12
months. Numbers of young scientists want to sign up for these
courses and the first two back-to-back workshops, will be held in
Papua New Guinea in late 1995.
Workshops on improving the presentation of information in an
extension-type format will also be carried out the national
level. At present most extension leaflets and posters try to
convey too much information in an inappropriate format and as a
result, fail. This is disheartening for the scientist and equally
so for the extension agent who is left without the means to
assist farmers. A series of national workshops will focus on
techniques of layout and design and how to present information at
an appropriate level, simply and effectively.
The Project will actively collaborate with other agencies in the
region, particularly the South Pacific Commission and the
University of the South Pacific, to ensure no duplication of
effort and to maximise individual strengths.
The vehicle for collaboration remains SCAINIP the Standing
Committee on Agricultural Information Networking in the Pacific.
Working with SCAINIP partners, updates of regional and
institutional databases are being distributed throughout the
region.
As can be seen, there are plenty of exciting activities under
way. But for the Project to be considered a success it must be
sustainable long after the experts have left and funds expended.
Together with two other PRAP Projects (Project 8 on biometrics
and Project 11 on technology transfer and linkages), the Project
will work closely with the departments of agriculture to achieve
this degree of sustainability.
Peter Walton For more information about PRAP Project 9,
contact:
Pacific Regional Agricultural Programme
Private Mail Bag
Suva
Fiji
Tel + 679 315 148
Fax + 679 315 075
E-mail: [email protected]
PRAP Project 9 began operation in May 1995. However, the
Project is not a new project in the strict sense of the term, but
a continuation of efforts over several years, by regional
agencies such as the South Pacific Commission (SPC) and the
University of the South Pacific (USP), with considerable support
from the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation
(CTA), the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United
Nations (FAO) and with funding from the European Union, the
United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Japan.
PRAP Project 9 builds particularly upon the work carried out by
the SPC Agricultural Information Service and the preparatory
stage (1991-1994) of the Pacific Agricultural Information System
project.
New Spanish INASP contact
Requests for literature in the Spanish language have proved to be
problematic for INASP to respond to adequately. We have still not
come across support programmes which cater on a reasonable scale
for the scientific world in Latin America and the Caribbean.
However, as from this winter we have been offered support from
inside the Spanish scientific community.
Spanish organisations involved in distributing science
information can now contact Dra Rosa de la Viesca, Director of
the Centro de Información Cientifica (CIC) in Madrid at the
address given below, in Spanish. From there information will be
passed on to the INASP office in London. The CIC has also offered
to mediate for specific requests from Latin America and the
Caribbean.
Contact:
Dra Rosa de la Viesca
Directora
Centro de Información Cientifica
Joaquin Costa, 22
28002 Madrid
ESPANA
Three years ago the Acta Facultatis Medicae Zagrabiensis was
renamed the Croatian Medical Journal. With the change of name a
whole change of policy took place behind the scenes. Internally,
much thought was given to the question whether a small,
re-emerged country like Croatia needed a medical journal with
international aspirations. Much of these considerations were
shared with the journal's audience through publications in the
following years. Progress was slow, but steady. Editors-in-chief
Ana and Matko Marusic's report about problems and solutions is
one to which many publishers of small and emerging journals will
be able to relate.
The conditions for starting a new medical journal in Croatia
three years ago were very unfavourable. Croatia is a small Balkan
post-communist war-torn country, and this string of adjectives to
its name does not sound promising. The scientific research in
Croatia also carried the burden of war destruction and
devastation and the legacy of the old system. Foreign help was
almost non-existent, except for bilateral scientific co-operation
agreements with some European states and the USA. Lastly, the
political instability in the region had already taken its toll.
Our primary goal with publication of the Croatian Medical Journal
(CMJ) was to create a journal in English that would be a central
biomedical journal in Croatia setting the standards for
publishing in biomedical research as high as possible. We aimed
to push Croatian scientists out of the false security of domestic
journals and encourage them to enter the international arena. The
Editorial Board thus centred its efforts on working with the
authors.
As domestic scientists often lack the skills needed for
publishing scientific articles in international journals, we have
developed a pre-review system of processing the manuscripts which
proved to be a crucial factor in improving the quality of the
journal. Such author-friendly manuscript processing starts in the
editorial office, where the editor in chief or a member of the
editorial board reads the submitted article and decides on the
quality of its content, not yet evaluating form and appearance.
If the scientific quality of the data merits their presentation,
the manuscript is returned to the author with detailed
instructions on how to improve the presentation of the data. The
main errors encountered are the poor construction of the
manuscript sections, unclear tables and poor quality or
unnecessary figures and tables, poor presentation of the data,
poor English, incomplete references, etc.
The author is asked to make all requested corrections and send
the manuscript back to the editorial office.
This pre-reviewing system may be repeated several times until the
editor is satisfied with the quality of the presentation. Then
the article is sent out for two peer reviews, one at home and one
abroad. It is our experience that scientists from other countries
are very willing to help and generally very prompt with their
reviews. If the reviewers consider the manuscript acceptable, the
author again has to make all the requested corrections. The final
version of the manuscript is then checked and corrected by a
full-time professional manuscript editor with a BA in English.
The manuscript is finally read by a member of the Editorial Board
who is sufficiently proficient in the English language to check
the final version for any remaining flaws.
Such elaborate time consuming (voluntary) work of the Editorial
Board resulted in an increased flow of often poorly prepared
manuscripts. Some authors even tried to submit articles in
Croatian, hoping that we would have them translated. This was
discouraged from the beginning by requesting a translation fee.
Nobody paid, and the articles now come in translated.
The second important factor in improving the quality of the
journal was its preparation for printing. The first few issues
were prepared by ourselves because we knew how to operate DTP
software. When the CMJ became the official journal of the World
Association of Croatian Physicians, we found a new and very
co-operative publisher, Mr. Wolfgang Pabst from Lengerich,
Germany. However, the distance between us and our German
publisher, as well as the language barrier, adversely affected
the quality of the final appearance of the journal. Sometimes we
were not satisfied with the printed issue, fonts got changed,
figures scanned and prepared in a different way, etc. Those flaws
were not serious and sometimes scarcely visible, but the journal
was not perfect in our eyes. We therefore went back to final
preparation of the journal in the editorial office. Now we scan
all the figures, make the final lay-out of the issue and send
camera-ready pages to the publisher.
This has several advantages, but the main one is that we can work
on the issue until we are completely satisfied,. making
last-minute changes when necessary, adjusting the required number
of pages, sizes of tables, etc. The investment in equipment was
worth the result; we have all issues saved in digital format and
we cannot blame anyone but ourselves for the mistakes. Additional
improvement was the appointment of a person responsible for the
layout: a young medical scientist with extensive knowledge about
computers and statistics who provides the last filter for each
manuscript in terms of validating data presentation.
The third factor influencing the quality of the journal is its
visibility. In a vast number of medical journals, another general
medical journal is hardly visible. One of our primary goals was
to make CMJ recognisable in areas specific to our region but of
interest to a wider audience, primarily in the research of the
effects of war and post-communist changes on the transformation
of the health care system etc. We hope that our reports on war
surgery, refugee health problems, psychological aspects of war
and transition from communism towards western-style democracy may
contribute to the prevention of similar disasters elsewhere.
Unfortunately the last, but not least factor for the survival and
presentation of a journal, its marketing, was rather neglected.
We believe that at least three to five years are needed to
establish a new journal and make it recognisable. The
arrangements with our present publisher were based on this
thought. We presently survive on the support from the Croatian
Ministry of Science and Technology (for running the editorial
office), the World Association of Croatian Physicians, and our
publisher (for printing and distribution). Plans are underway to
make a joint presentation with some other newly established
journals, such as the Acta Medica Baltica, from his publishing
office. We have decided to put our efforts also in the journal
presentation on the Internet, which may prove more efficient and
cheaper than the standard ways of marketing.
We are sure that the only recipe for success is constant
improvement of the quality and scientific value of the published
articles. All other things, such as international acclaim or
coverage by international indices will follow the quality.
Ana Marusic Matko Marusic Co-editors-in-Chief
Address:
Croatian Medical Journal
Zagreb University School of Medicine
Salata 3
41000 Zagreb
Croatia
Tel: + 385 1 4566 903
Fax: + 385 1 4566 724
E-mail: [email protected]
References:
1. Marusic M. The first issue of the Croatian Medical Journal.
Croatian Med J 1992; 33:1-2
2. Lackovic Z. Editorial: Who needs the Croatian Medical Journal?
Croatian Med J 1992; 33:67-77
3. Marusic A. Croatian medical Journal: A small country's window
to the world. European Science Editing 1993; 50:9-10
4. Nylenna M. The future of medical journals: An editor's view.
Croatian Med J 1994; 35:195-198
5. Marusic A. Who needs the Croatian Medical Journal? - Three
years after. Croatian Med J 1995; 36:78-80
From Prof P. Campbell We received the following letter
which we would like to share with our readers. In his letter,
Prof Campbell poses some questions shared by many, but not often
widely publicised.
Readers are invited to respond. A 'public' debate on the value of
local/national science publishing in future issues of the
newsletter would be of great value for anyone working with the
matter.
Dear Sir,
I read your Newsletter dated May 1995 with much interest but with
a feeling that many of the articles concerning the improvement of
the publication of scientific research in developing countries
lacked reality. I was struck in particular by the statements
following the workshop in Guadalajara which listed the reasons
for the «paramount importance» of publications and the report
on the work of the ICSU Committee on Capacity Building in
Science.
As one who has been concerned with several British Council Links
in Africa and elsewhere and who edits an international journal, I
have given much thought to the concerns mentioned above and
readily admit that I have no easy solutions. There are, however,
several ground rules that must be acknowledged and followed.
Publication is an essential and integral component of any
research project. No scientist has the right to expect public
support unless he/she is prepared to submit his results and
conclusions to scientific scrutiny by his peers and is willing to
act on the criticisms. (I am aware that there is some dispute as
to the impartiality of peer reviews but it is my belief that in
general the system works well.) In view of the current state of
scientific research in developing countries such peers are
unlikely to be found within them; rather they are likely to be
found within the OECD countries. Since the language of science is
now English it is a waste of time to submit a scientific paper in
any other language.
If the above premises be accepted, then it follows that the best
way to assist scientific publication from developing countries is
to encourage the scientists to submit their papers to
international journals, usually overseas, edited by those who are
genuinely prepared to be constructive in their criticisms. In
practice this means that journals which publish camera ready copy
are out since in general they do not do a proper job of editing
and peer review. Publication should not in itself be costly and
there is no excuse for the use of journals that demand the
payment of page charges even from those not in a position to pay
them. It also follows that journals that are published by
universities and institutions with local editorial boards should
not be supported and even national journals should not usually be
encouraged.
I realise that many of the views expressed above are contrary to
those mentioned in your Newsletter but it is my contention that
it is in the long run unkind to promote unrealistic proposals
about the serious matter of the best utilisation of a scarce
resource. I fully support the views expressed which aim to
increase information exchange among scientists and every effort
should be made to make international journals available to the
libraries in developing countries. The efforts of INASP in these
regions should be saluted and encouraged.
Peter N. Campbell
Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
University College London
London WC1E 6BT
UK
Montpellier this summer witnessed the gathering for a seminar
on The Role of Information for Rural Development in ACP countries
organised by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural
Co-operation (CTA). The Conclusions and Recommendations were
published (very swiftly) last month.
The document is crammed with the usual information development
jargon. A pity, because between the lines of the document some
interesting shifts in bias emerge. They deserve the attention of
a broader audience.
The rapid changes which have taken place in information needs,
the players involved in the information exchange chain, the role
of information professionals and information technology require a
reconsideration of the appropriate action to be undertaken in
support of a freer flow of information.
On some points the final document of the Montpellier meeting
deviates considerably from the track which has been followed in
recent years. Here is a summary of the most remarkable points:
With regard to information exchange the development vocabulary
should replace the terms target groups and beneficiaries with
actors and partners for these actors/partners will more and more
be providers as well as users of information.
According to the writers it is time to move away from the wide
distribution of plain scientific and technical information and
towards information which includes economic, technical, social
and cultural aspects of development instead. In addition the idea
of information distribution should be shifted much more towards
communication, implying two-way traffic instead of one-way
information flooding. The report then goes into detail about how
to achieve these goals.
Another interesting point made in the document is that of the
changing role (and hopefully status) of documentalists, generally
a sore point in librarians' 'speak'. The priority of
documentalists should no longer be in the collection, storage and
processing of information, but in its application, dissemination
and communication.
The last point is crucial, although it is doubtful whether it has
only become actual because of the changing information landscape.
In many places documentalists have not proved to be the brightest
exploiters of the treasures they were sitting on. The current
trend towards recognition of the importance of readily available
information will hopefully continue to push the profession out of
the realms of ordinary stock-keeping and into the key role it
really ought to play.
The Conclusions and Recommendations can be obtained from:
CTA
PO Box 380
6700 AJ Wageningen
The Netherlands
Tel: + 31 317 467100
Fax: + 31 317 460067
INASP also gave a presentation at the Eighth International
Conference of the International Federation of Science Editors.
This year's conference was held in Barcelona
Although many editors work relatively isolated from their
colleagues in (to use the conference jargon) emerging regions,
there is a growing awareness of the specific problems these
editors face. With this awareness comes a greater urge to
collaborate and develop other activities in support of small
struggling journals.
There was a strong contingent of editors from Latin America, most
notably from Brazil, which appeared very capable of illustrating
creative survival techniques in Latin America. Lewis Greene's
account on the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological
Research was particularly outstanding. We have invited him to
write an abstract for the Newsletter as it might be helpful for
editors and managers in similar circumstances.
At this conference no agreement was reached as to whether or not
science publishing should be a strictly international business or
whether local science publishing should be supported so heavily.
The audience was too broad for any consensus and the emerging
regions were not the main topic of the conference. Hopefully we
will have some bold statements on the issue next time. A
discussion in this particular arena could contribute greatly to
the international debate.
No conference proceedings published yet.
More information from the IFSE-8 secretariat
Apartado 16009
E-08080 Barcelona
Spain
The INASP Newsletter Notice Board is a public forum for
organisations and institutions wishing to advertise their
projects, activities, offers or requests.
Short contributions can be sent to the editor at INASP.
Request for support with allelopathy translations
From the International Allelopathy Foundation in Haryana, India,
we received a request for support with the translation of Russian
books on allelopathy into English. INASP (as many organisations
approached by Prof. Narwal earlier on) cannot find a specific
response to this request. Anyone who could help with advice is
kindly requested to contact: Prof. S.S.Narwal International
Allelopathy Foundation CCS Haryana Agricultural University
Hisar-125 004 Haryana INDIA
The Awassa College of Agriculture in Sadoma, Ethiopia are
urgently requesting back-runs of some of the journals to which
they have recently taken out subscriptions.
The journals are:
Crop Protection 1988 - 1994
Weed Science 1989 - 1993
Annual Review of Entomology 1990 - 1994
Annual Review of Phytopathology 1990 - 1994
Phytoparasitica: Israel Journal of Plant Protection 1990 - 1994
If you are willing to make any of the above journals/volumes
available for donation to Ethiopia please contact the INASP
office in London.
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©Copyright: INASP 1996
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