VHL News Network

New VHL Cochrane Portal expands access to evidence sources

BIREME/PAHO/WHO operates as from April 2007 the new VHL Cochrane Portal, which offers health professionals from all Latin American and Caribbean countries access to an expanded collection of sources of information produced by the Cochrane Collaboration, its Review Collaboration Groups and Collaboration Centers. In addition to the original databases from the Cochrane Library, produced by the Cochrane Collaboration, the VHL Cochrane Portal includes other six sources of information in Spanish that compose the Cochrane Library Plus, produced by the Iberoamerican Cochrane Centre and by the Iberoamerican Cochrane Network. It also includes 650 abstracts of Cochrane systematic review abstracts in Portuguese, produced by the Brazilian Cochrane Centre
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World Congress of Cochrane Collaboration is held in Sao Paulo

The 15th Cochrane Colloquium, to be held in October 23-27, 2007, in Sao Paulo, will gather more than 700 health professionals, health information professionals, librarians, scientific journal editors, policy makers and managers, as well as those interested in evidence-based information, coming from over 70 countries. The themes to be discussed will address "Health evidence-based to all" and "Outcomes (results) based on patients' preferences." Organized by the Brazilian Cochrane Centre, an institution connected to the UNIFESP, with the support of BIREME/PAHO/WHO, the event core theme is "Evidence-based care for all with a special focus on patient-oriented outcomes"
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BIREME 40th Year: March is BIREME's anniversary month!

On March 28, 2007, at the UNIFESP Central Library, a meeting celebrated the 40th anniversary of BIREME creation at UNIFESP campus, as a PAHO Specialized Center in scientific and technical information on health. Among the the guests, eight information professionals from the WHO came to the celebration. The event was marked by the nice conviviality atmosphere and recalled the motivations that led to the institution's creation, development and decisive contribution to research and education in healthcare in the Latin America and the Caribbean. Authorities and well-known guests acknowledged in the speeches the essential role played by the BIREME and stressed the importance of political, institutional and financial support. The milestones, as well as the perspectives and future challenges to be faced by the BIREME, present in the development and expansion of the VHL and the supplementary networks SciELO, ePORTUGUÊSe and GHL were highlighted
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Latin American journals increase presence in MEDLINE database

MEDLINE database is the most used source of information of scientific literature to retrieve medical and biomedical information in the world. Until some years ago, the number of Latin American titles indexed in MEDLINE accounted for approximately 1% of titles. This situation led BIREME/PAHO/WHO and a network of institutions to develop the LILACS database, which complements MEDLINE content and currently indexes roughly 700 selected titles. Up to November 2006, 5,051 titles of scientific journals were indexed in MEDLINE, which are published in more than 70 countries, in all Life Sciences fields. Thirteen countries from Latin America and the Caribbean are represented in it by 67 titles indexed, headed by Brazil, with 32 titles (48%), Mexico, with 12 (18%) and Argentina, with 7 (10%). The LILACS and MEDLINE databases are accessible at the VHL
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MbRG Group of WHO Family of International Classifications meets in Canada

The Morbidity Reference Group (MbRG) met in Vancouver, Canada, on March 1st to 3rd, 2007. The MbRG is a work group of the WHO Collaboration Center Network for the Family of International Classifications. The meeting was attended by 16 participants, representing the WHO Centers for Family of International Classifications in the US (which includes Canada), Australia, Japan, Scandinavian countries and Brazil. Cássia Buchalla, physician and epidemiologist from the FSP/USP, attended the meeting, representing Roberto Becker, regional advisor for international classifications of PAHO, who has been acting at BIREME/PAHO/WHO as from the beginning of 2007, specifically with the terminology and classification team
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OA developments in Europe and the United States: closing the knowledge gap for developing country science

As defined by the BOAI, open access (OA) can be achieved either by the "green route", in which the authors deposit copies of their final accepted papers in interoperable institutional repositories (IRs), or by the "gold route", where journals are fully published in OA and the publishing costs are met by other means. SciELO, PLoS, BioMedCentral, MedKnow, Bioline International have pioneered the gold route and have ensured free access to research output, which otherwise would have 'limited access'. In parallel, an increasing number of IRs has been set up around the world. There is now growing political recognition that publicly-funded research should be publicly available, thus speeding scientific development, gaining maximum economic benefits from research investment and helping to resolve major global problems
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