The publishing firm John Wiley & Sons, Inc. recently announced that it would make available 12,200 e-books to developing areas around the world. The texts are made available through the efforts of the Research4Life initiative, a partnership between four programs: HINARI, AGORA, OARE, and ARDI. The effort seeks to provide access to peer-reviewed journals and research texts to 80 developing nations, such as Malawi, Cambodia, and Bolivia.
The beneficiaries receive internet access to thousands of international scientific journals, books, and databases. These can texts can be downloaded, saved, and printed. The database allows users to search through articles by keyword, subject, author, and language. These resources are available in many languages. Research4Life also offers training for the program.
Research4Life aims to close the education gap in an effort complete the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015. In total, the initiative has benefited 6,000 institutions in developing countries. Some of these institutions receive access for free, while others have access at a low cost. With the addition of Wiley’s online library, the e-book library numbers almost 30,000 journals, books, and databases.
Emily Gillingham, chair of Research4Life’s Executive Council, stated, “The books are empowering universities, colleges, research institutes, and government ministries, as well as non-governmental agencies and hospitals, with access to scientific knowledge.”
Gillingham noted that almost 6,000 of the books deal with chemistry, the physical sciences, and engineering. 1,200 of the titles are medical. 2,000 of the texts are related to the life sciences, agriculture, and food science.
Creative Commons Love: Ian Wilson at Flickr.com
Written by Sean Yi