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Challenges for the scientific community – a perspective on

Latin America

International Conference on Scientific Electronic Publishing in Developing Countries

Valparaíso, Chile,September 2002.

Ana María Cetto Instituto de Física, UNAMOctavio Alonso Dir. Gen. de Bibliotecas, UNAM

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Contents:

• Introduction – a multiple perspective

• Latin America and ICT

• Impact of the Internet and ep

• Electronic journals in Latin America

• Discussion and outlook (some elements)

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Introduction:

Latin America is a large and diverse region, with 33 countries and territories of different sizes and widely different degrees of development, and we cannot pretend to know their different perspectives in the field of electronic publishing in science.

Important divides must be considered that range from economic and social ones to cultural, scientific and educational ones. Some of these divides are more prominent among developing countries, than between developed and developing ones...

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50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

Middle East Africa Latin America Asia/Pacific Europe US/Canada World Total

Number of Internet users, October 2000

Data taken from NUA Surveys, 2000

Middle East Africa LA&C Asia/Pacific Europe US/Canada World Total

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Asia &Oceania

USA&Canada

Europe

LA&C

Africa

59,653 Mbps

20,632 Mbps

2,638 Mbps

172 Mbps

357 Mbps

127 Mbps

International Internet links, 2000

Data taken from RAND 2001

513 Mbps

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IT in Latin America

The development and use of ICTs in the region is marked by strong inequalities, between and within countries

Most of the countries lack a fully-fledged information policy and the instruments to implement it

Some regional efforts: INFOLAC – strengthening cooperation between information

systems and networksRedHUCyT (OAS) - interuniversity S&T information

network (supports 32 specialized information networks)

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Impact of the Internet and electronic publishing

To what extent are the ICTs changing the access, use and production of scientific information and what are the factors that facilitate or inhibit this change?

1. View of scientists – Case study: the physics community of the

University of Puebla, Mexico: 78% use the Internet daily, for one hour or more, mainly for document retrieval and bibliographical databases; also for use of online electronic journals, preprints and› technical information.

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63% use email and Internet for publishing purposes:› submission of manuscripts› eprint publishing› (ejournal publishing)

Principal benefits:› access to relevant scientific information› acquisition of software and tools

Main obstacles:› bad connectivity and low speed› lack of guidance to services; excess of information.

Impact of the Internet and ep, cont.

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Impact of the Internet and ep, cont.

2. View of librarians – new challenges (financial, organisational, ... )

2. View of editors - varied response.To some, it facilitates the editorial process, reduces production and distribution costs, and opens new possibilities and mechanisms of diffusion.

First collections of electronic journals (early 1990s), Artemisa, Infomed

The experience in the fields of health and biomedicine set the proper ground for more recent initatives in other fields.

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Electronic journals in Latin America

The development of electronic journals in the region has been very uneven

Their tracing and registration is complicated by instabilities such as the change of URLs or renaming of titles

The searching task has been considerably eased with the recent creation of portals, both geographical and thematic

Some of these constitute true virtual libraries, based on standardized methodologies and having easy and

attractive search interfaces.

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Full-text online electronic journals – per discipline

1. Med.& Publ.Health 266 13. History 182. Agric. sciences 45 14. Chemistry 173. Multidisciplinary 39 15. Earth Sciences

174. Economics 37 16. Law 175. Biology 34 17. Politics

146. Education 33 18. Lit.& Linguistics 107. Sociology 31 19. Communication 88. Arts 28 20. Management 69. Psychology 27 21. Anthropology 510. Engineering 26 22. Physics 511. Libr.& Inf. Sci. 20 23. Philosophy 312.Comp.& Maths. 19 24. Demography 2

Source: LATINDEX Total: 727

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Full-text online electronic journals – per country

1. Argentina1. Argentina 2929 12. Honduras 12. Honduras 1 12. Bahamas2. Bahamas 11 13. Mexico 13. Mexico 132 1323. Bolivia3. Bolivia 11 14. Paraguay 14. Paraguay 1 14. Brazil4. Brazil 172172 15. Peru 15. Peru 11 115. Chile5. Chile 5353 16. Portugal 16. Portugal 3 36. Colombia6. Colombia 4343 17. Puerto Rico 17. Puerto Rico 2 27. Costa Rica7. Costa Rica 88 18. Spain 18. Spain 194 1948. Cuba8. Cuba 4141 19. Uruguay 19. Uruguay 3 39. Ecuador9. Ecuador 22 20. Venezuela 20. Venezuela 16 1610. El Salvador10. El Salvador 22 21. Intl. Organis. 21. Intl. Organis. 3 311. Guatemala11. Guatemala 33 TotalTotal 727 727

Source: LATINDEX