Armenian Canadian Medical Association of Ontario

Free full-text biomedical resources

Armenia: poor enough to be rich and not know it

The case of free online access to the world of biomedical literature

December, 2003; Toronto, Canada

Armenia's chief resource is its intellect. Its greatest promise to survive, let alone prosper, is through innovation. One of the principal tools for science is unfettered access to scientific literature. The advanced world provides, through its universities and hospitals, free online access to its scientists at huge costs. This allows strides that only ten years ago would have seemed incredible.

During the last year, the Armenian Canadian Medical Association of Ontario (ACMAO) was contacted by a number of medical scientists with requests for help in finding ways to provide online access to Armenian researchers. Not one hospital or university could afford the costs of full-text online access to the world medical literature.

We therefore embarked on this extremely important mission, and after much negotiations, time and effort succeeded in obtaining six free accounts for Armenia to the world biomedical literature through the University of Toronto. This meant that the six groups who would own these accounts in Armenia would have as much access to full-text journals as any University of Toronto scientist.

On our gleeful way out of the final meeting with the University, one of the librarians said: Armenia must be doing well if its per capita Gross National Product is over $1000! We asked him what do you mean? He responded: Did you not know that the World Health Organization has an agreement in place with the largest journal publishers worldwide for free-of-charge full-text access for any institution in a country with a GNP less than $1000? The project is called HINARI (Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative)

It turns out that Armenia's GNP is $500. It turns out that the library of the Yerevan State University does have a HINARI account, yet the great majority of medical doctors and scientists are not aware of the existence of this resource.

We tested the veracity of this information and helped the University Hospital No. 1 in Yerevan to register with HINARI. Currently, the hospital and all who work in it enjoy full-text access to 2556 online biomedical journals from virtually all medical publishing companies. In fact any hospital or institution in Armenia qualifies. All that is required is internet connection at the participating institution, a responsible director and a librarian. The web site is http://www.healthinternetwork.org.

We hope that this resource will help raise Armenia's GNP over $1000, so we can leave the company of those who are poor enough to be rich and not know it.

Berge A. Minassian, MD
Chairman, ACMAO

Artur Gevorgyan, MD
Member, ACMAO

P.S. Currently, several other institutions have access to HINARI, including the Biochemistry Institute, American University of Armenia and Emergency Scientific Medical Center.

© 2004-2008. Armenian Canadian Medical Association of Ontario