Elsevier Makes LIS Journals Freely Available to HINARI and AGORA Libraries

["Mcsean, Tony (ELS)" <T.Mcsean@elsevier.com>]

Attached is an announcement of a significant expansion of our 
participation in the HINARI and AGORA projects which we hope will 
help support the professional development of librarians in the 
developing world.

Apologies for cross-posting.

Tony McSean
Director of Library Relations
Elsevier

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Elsevier's Library Journals Provide New Resource to HINARI and 
AGORA's Information Professionals:  Leading library journals now 
available to librarians in developing world

Amsterdam, April 10, 2006 - Elsevier is pleased to announce that 
its extensive range of library and information science journals 
are now accessible to professionals in developing countries 
through HINARI, the World Health Organization's 
HealthInterNetwork and AGORA, the United Nation's Access to 
Global Online Research in Agriculture programs. With over 900 
journals in HINARI (and 230 in AGORA), Elsevier represents 30% of 
HINARI's annual 3.3 million downloads and is proud to be one of 
the founding publishers of both initiatives.

The addition of Elsevier's 14 library and information journals to 
HINARI and AGORA ensures that professionals across 1,800 higher 
education and research institutes in 105 developing countries 
will benefit from leading resources such as Information 
Processing & Management, International Information & Library 
Review, Journal of Academic Librarianship, Library Collections, 
Acquisitions & Technical Services, and Serials Review.

Tony McSean, Elsevier's Director of Library Relations and a 
former medical librarian commented, "HINARI and AGORA is a vital 
resource for clinicians and researchers in the developing world. 
Elsevier and other leading scientific publishers are providing 
information resources free of charge which match those available 
in the European and North American hospitals. Getting the most 
from these services is a challenge to all medical librarians, and 
we hope that these 14 titles will make a major contribution to 
the professional development of staff within HINARI and AGORA 
libraries."

"We are delighted that these key library and information journals 
will help to meet the professional needs of librarians serving 
doctors and researchers throughout the developing world--ensuring 
the best possible use of the public health materials in HINARI 
and AGORA's vast virtual libraries," noted Martin Tanke, Managing 
Director, Journal Publishing, Science & Technology, Elsevier. "It 
is with pleasure that we can report that HINARI is the 8th 
largest user of ScienceDirect and in the last year the total 
number of article downloads by HINARI libraries has moved ahead 
of many major European and US research universities."


# # #

About HINARI

The Health InterNetwork <http://www.who.int/hinari/en/> was 
created to bridge the "information divide" in health, ensuring 
that relevant information - and the technologies to deliver it - 
are widely available and effectively used by health personnel, 
including professionals, policy makers, researchers and 
scientists. Launched by the Secretary General of the United 
Nations in September 2000 and led by the World Health 
Organization, the Health InterNetwork has brought together public 
and private partners under the principle of ensuring equitable 
access to health information. The core elements of the project 
are content, Internet connectivity and capacity building.

The Health InterNetwork provides a vast library of the latest and 
best information on public health: more then 2.000 scientific 
publications and one of the world's largest collections of 
biomedical literature. This collection is available through the 
efforts of WHO, together with the six biggest biomedical 
publishers: Blackwell, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide 
STM Group, Wolters KluwerInternational Health & Science, Springer 
Verlag and John Wiley. It has been described by WHO 
Director-General Dr.Gro Harlem Brundtland as "perhaps the biggest 
step ever taken toward reducing the health information gap 
between rich and poor countries.

About AGORA

AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture) was 
founded in 2003 by the United Nation's Food and Agricultural 
Organization to provide free or very low cost access to journals 
in the agriculture, biological, environmental and social 
sciences. AGORA aims to provide to researchers, policy-makers, 
educators, and students in developing countries with vital 
research that will ultimately help to increase crop yields and 
food security. The founding publishers of AGORA are: Blackwell 
Publishing; CABI Publishing; Elsevier; Kluwer Academic 
Publishers; Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins; Nature Publishing 
Group; Oxford University Press; Springer Verlag; and John Wiley 
and Sons. Funding and support is also provided by Cornell 
University Mann Library, Rockefeller Foundation, the United 
Kingdom Department for International Development and the United 
States Agency for International Development. For more 
information, visit <http://www.aginternetwork.org>, or contact 
the AGORA program team at the FAO on AGORA@fao.org.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical 
and medical information products and services. Working in 
partnership with the global science and health communities, 
Elsevier's 7,000 employees in over 70 offices worldwide publish 
more than 2,000 journals and 1,900 new books per year, in 
addition to offering a suite of innovative electronic products, 
such as ScienceDirect <http://www.sciencedirect.com/>, MD Consult 
<http://www.mdconsult.com/>, Scopus <http://www.info.scopus.com>, 
bibliographic databases, and online reference works.

Elsevier <http://www.elsevier.com/> is a global business 
headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and has offices 
worldwide. Elsevier is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc 
<http://www.reedelsevier.com/>, a world-leading publisher and 
information provider. Operating in the science and medical, 
legal, education and business-to-business sectors, Reed Elsevier 
provides high-quality and flexible information solutions to 
users, with increasing emphasis on the Internet as a means of 
delivery. Reed Elsevier's ticker symbols are REN (Euronext 
Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York 
Stock Exchange).

Media Contact:
Ylann Schemm
Phone: +31 20 485 2736
E-mail: newsroom@elsevier.com