OARE Project Funded at Yale

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

Of possible interest.
__________________________

December 2005


CONTACT:

For immediate release:

Grants to Enable Developing World to Access Leading Scientific Research

      New Haven, Conn.-Two grants totaling $500,000 will support Yale 
University's participation in an international consortium to make 
prestigious scientific journals in the environmental sciences available 
online, at little or no cost, to the developing world

      The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the John D. and 
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation each have given $250,000 to Yale to help 
establish Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE). OARE, a 
digital internet library for developing countries, will provide access to 
the peer-reviewed scientific literature of leading international 
publishing houses. Organizations eligible to use OARE will include 
approximately 1,000 public, non-profit institutions in more than 100 
underdeveloped nations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and 
Eastern Europe. Literature in environmental chemistry, economics, law and 
policy, and other environmental subjects such as botany, conservation 
biology, ecology and zoology will be available through a portal presented 
in several world languages, including Arabic, English, French, Portuguese 
and Spanish.

      Yale's OARE activities will be directed by Oswald Schmitz, professor 
of population and community ecology and associate dean of academic affairs 
at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and Ann Okerson, 
associate university librarian for collections and international programs.

       James Gustav Speth, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and 
Environmental Studies, stated, "Thanks to advances in information and 
communication technologies and the great generosity of many leading 
scientific publishers and foundations, we now have an unprecedented 
opportunity to provide environmental institutions in 110 less-developed 
countries intellectual resources that we in the developed world take for 
granted."

      Alice Prochaska, University Librarian added: "We are eager to work 
together to increase the ability of leading scientists in developing 
countries to conduct their own high-quality research and develop their own 
educational programs in the environmental sciences. Helping the world 
benefit from Yale's wealth of expertise by extending access to information 
and resources is central to the library's mission."

      Published in the United States and Europe under copyright and with 
annual subscription fees averaging $1,000, the prestigious journals in 
which a majority of scientific research is published are too costly for 
most developing nations to purchase. OARE will enable countries to build 
their own higher education programs in the environmental sciences, educate 
their own leaders, conduct their own research, publish their own 
scientific findings and disseminate information to policy makers and the 
public.

      Next year, OARE will be offered to users in 70 developing nations 
with a per capita gross national product (GNP) of $1,000 or less in the 
first phase of the project's implementation. In the project's second 
phase, approximately 45 more countries with GNP per capita between $1,000 
and $3,000 will be enrolled.

      Yale will develop OARE in cooperation with the United Nations 
Environment Programme, the World Health Organization, the Food and 
Agriculture Organization, Cornell University and leading scientific 
publishers around the world. Yale will create software for OARE's secure 
internet portal, organize and updates its database of scientific 
literature, attract new publishers to the consortium, and develop 
partnerships between the consortium and American and European institutions 
to expand internet connectivity and offer training.

      Paul Bendiks Walberg, a recent graduate of the School of Management 
and School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and Kimberly Parker, head 
of the university library's electronic collections, conceived the OARE 
project over the course of the last three years. The project is inspired 
by Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI), a World 
Heath Organization program in which Yale played a leading role, that has 
strengthened public health services in developing countries by providing 
access to research in the medical sciences.

      The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, based in Menlo Park, 
Calif., supports activities in education, the environment, global 
development, the performing arts and population. The MacArthur Foundation, 
which has offices around the world, is dedicated to helping groups and 
individuals foster lasting improvement in the human condition.

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