FW: CABI Publishing provide support for Agora

[Tracy Shaw <t.shaw@cabi.org>]

Apologies for cross-posting.
 
 
Press Release: CABI Publishing provide boost to AGORA launch
14th October 2003
 
CABI Publishing is providing vital support to a United Nations programme,
which aims to increase the quality and effectiveness of agricultural
education, research and training in low-income countries.
 
AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture) has been set up to
address the problem of a lack of current scientific research in many
low-income countries. As well as providing access to nine core journals*,
CABI Publishing has created a specialist subset of CAB Abstracts
specifically for AGORA.
 
Elizabeth Dodsworth, Director of Information for Development at CABI
Publishing, explains: "We are a unique partner in this programme as we are
providing both access to journals and a subset of CAB Abstracts. The
subset has been individually created specifically for AGORA and contains
more than 140,000 articles published from 1997 onwards. The subset will be
updated regularly and we hope it will aid the long-term goals of AGORA by
providing access over the world-wide-web to comprehensively indexed, peer
reviewed scientific research."
 
Potential users of the CAB Abstracts section of AGORA will include tribal
farmers who will receive access to information on subjects such as
learning about varieties of wheat that are resistant to disease. This
could have massive implications on helping to prevent world hunger - one
of the core aims of the FAO. Elizabeth explains: "In many cases a local
tribal farmer might have found the answer to a problem that is troubling a
neighbour. Because of the lack of access to information resources this
knowledge is never shared. CAB Abstracts, through AGORA, will enable
researchers to access this knowledge base and pass on the learning to
other farmers in the field."
 
The idea sounds simple, but designing such a comprehensive database wasn't
without difficulty, as Elizabeth explains: "Creating this database was a
massive effort for us, delivering both platform, search interface and
specific metadata elements for the project. We are extremely grateful to
the UK Department for International Development for providing us with the
funds to deliver this."
 
The AGORA initiative will be launched in two phases: Phase I for free
access (from October 2003) and Phase II for low-cost access (in the near
future). The first Phase will mean AGORA is available to most countries
with an annual per capita gross national product of $1,000 or less.
 
AGORA was launched by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations (FAO) on October 14th.  AGORA is a partnership between the FAO,
CABI Publishing, Cornell University, World Health Organization and seven
other major scientific publishers.
 
* The journals provided by CABI Publishing through AGORA are:

In collaboration with the Nutrition Society:
British Journal of Nutrition
Nutrition Research Reviews
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society
Public Health Nutrition
 
In collaboration with the British Society of Soil Science:
Soil Use and Management
 
CABI Publishing titles:
American Journal of Alternative Agriculture
Animal Health Research Reviews
Bulletin of Entomological Research
Journal of Helminthology
 
ENDS
 
For more information please contact: Helen Wigginton - Razor PR on *44
(0)1869 353800
 
For more information on AGORA contact: agora@fao.org or see
www.aginternetwork.org
 
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Tracy Shaw
Marketing Manager
CABI Publishing
Wallingford
Oxon, OX10 8DE, UK
 
Telephone: +44 (0)1491 829312
Fax: +44 (0)1491 829198
Email: t.shaw@cabi.org
  
Visit us at www.cabi-publishing.org