ABESI reached an agreement with the UPR Recinto de Ciencias Medicas Library (RCM) by which all Investigators in PR-AABRE Institutions can obtain scientific articles in electronic format at a reduced cost, providing that such articles are not in their own institution's holdings. The articles can be obtained requesting them on-line as an Inter-Library-Loan (ILL) and having them delivered by email to the address specified by the user.

The pool of available articles includes ALL articles available in PubMed through the DOCLINE network using the LOANSOME DOC facility of the NLM National Library of Medicine. (Click here to see the full text of the agreement - in Spanish)

ABESI dedicated an initial $ 6,000.00 as “seed funds” that were deposited by PR-AABRE for the users to start using the system at no charge for evaluation purposes during a trial period until the initial deposit is spent.

After this trial period the PR-AABRE libraries or other Grant moneys should support the system making additional deposits in UPR-RCM on separate accounts.

DOCLINE is the National Library of Medicine's automated interlibrary loan (ILL) request routing and referral system. The purpose of the system is to provide improved document delivery service among libraries in the National Network of Libraries of Medicine® (NN/LM®) by linking journal holdings to efficiently route the requests to potential lending libraries on behalf of the borrower. DOCLINE is intended to be used by libraries (not individuals), to lend/borrow their holdings among them. More than 500 US libraries are in the DOCLINE network. The underlying DOCLINE software was developed and is supported by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Since DOCLINE is to be used by libraries (not individuals), individuals must request full text articles through a library belonging to the DOCLINE network using for such purpose an ordering Web form called LOANSOME DOC.

All researchers were informed about the ILL agreement (a list of more than 150 scientist) by email and given precise instructions (see Rules of Use here) about how to register and use the system to obtain scientific articles easily, quickly and at low prices.

Libraries were also notified about the ILL agreement but their notification is slightly different from the one sent to the users. (See the notification text in Spanish here) .

Besides, in order to disseminate the awareness and the knowledge about the ILL system agreement mentioned above among researchers specifically participating in the PR-AABRE Program, a series of seminars were already given and some are to be held in the different campuses for the researchers participating in the PR-AABRE Program.

In order to improve the Inter Library Loans operations, a PC with scanner and printer, as well as the ARIEL software were acquired by ABESI for those PR-AABRE Institutions which did not have the system as yet. (3 institutions).

ARIEL, and the associated equipment allows digital sending and receiving of documents (scientific articles), among libraries in a more efficient manner than by fax or regular mail. It not only speeds up operations, but also enhances the quality of the results. It allows converting the documents to PDF format, even in color, and provides help in the administrative task of managing the requests for information.

Serving the needs and requirements of the investigators is only one of the many tasks and responsibilities that libraries have to face, and this fact does not help to give them preference. This is why a liaison activity is necessary.

Another weak area, and this refers to the scientists themselves, is the proficiency in the use of the search engines in the Internet to find the information and the ability to manage their private databases using software like End Note or Reference Manager. These areas have to be strengthened by means of organizing workshops and providing the investigators with the adequate software and instruction about its usage.

As to the End Note software, 12 licenses were recently purchased, by ABESI, one for every PI (Principal Investigator), and seminars are being prepared to encourage its use.

Also the function of the libraries Committees, in all institutions must be more oriented towards transmitting the investigators' needs to reach the most cost-effective solutions within the given budget.

At the present time (Feb-2006), ABESI is negotiating with the Library of Medicine (UPR Recinto de Ciencias Medicas) and with the Library of Natural Science (UPR Recinto Rio Piedras), for the investigators of the PR-AABRE Program to have remote access to the library resources from wherever they are, not necessarily from within their respective campuses.

The need of having such access is important because not all investigators are located at the campuses mentioned above at all times, and some of them even belong to Institutions outside of UPR (like University of Turabo, Interamerican and Metropolitan University). The investigators outside of UPR whose research is funded by the PR-AABRE Program, are in a way related to UPR for the duration of the Grant, so there should not be any conflicts related to the use of the licenses given to UPR by the Information Service Providers. The list of researchers consists on 18 persons anyhow, so the number is irrelevant compared to the existing UPR Library patrons.

Since the PR-AABRE Program refers to Biomedical research, the main source of scientific information is the Medical Library of the UPR Medical Sciences Campus. However the Library of Natural Sciences has a lot of information on Chemistry (as Chemical Abstracts) and Crystallography which are not available in the Medical Library but is needed by some researchers in those areas. For this reason ABESI is negotiating the remote access to both libraries mentioned above. The Medical Library does not have the Remote Access Proxy Server that would be necessary to provide remote access service, and for this reason ABESI will collaborate with $5,000.00 dollars in order for such a server to be purchased and installed. The Library of Natural Sciences has already its own server, so the possibility of remote access depends only on the library management decision to grant such access.


Future challenges

Even though ABESI's immediate goals related to the PR-AABRE Program would be satisfied by fulfilling the Specific Aims, it is of ABESI's interest to facilitate the access to scientific information to all biomedical researchers in Puerto Rico, and not only to those related to the PR-AABRE Program. One of the challenges in this respect would be to obtain remote access to the library resources for all 140 investigators (and possibly more), in the biomedical areas, and not only for the 18 persons belonging to the list mentioned above. In order for this to become viable it would be convenient to establish as a UPR policy that future contracts with information suppliers for licensing online access to databases, books, or journals, should contain a clause allowing remote access by proxy server to 1% of the population for which such access is granted from the campus premises. Information providers are, in general, wary of remote access by proxy so such a clause would have to be established in a case by case negotiation, and having a general UPR policy as support, would make the negotiations much easier.