[india-drug] E-drug: Donating books and journals to less developed

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E-drug: Donating books and journals to less developed countries
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BMJ 2003;326:298 ( 8 February )
Editorials
Donating books and journals to less developed countries
The BMA/BMJ information fund welcomes applications from institutions

Both the BMA and the BMJ receive many requests for free medical books
and
journals from doctors and librarians in less developed countries and
other
areas of need. Until recently we have had no specific funding to meet
these
requests, and have arranged donations of secondhand journals and
surplus BMJ
books somewhat haphazardly. Since 2000, however, the BMA and BMJ have
set
aside £30 000 ($47 000; 47  000) a year, from the profits of the BMJ
Publishing Group, to help institutions to choose the right health
information for their users (see BMA/BMJ information fund's activity
report
for 2000-2 on bmj.com).

The BMA/BMJ information fund does not give money but donates and sends
educational materials. And because we want our donations to help as
many
people as possible we consider applications only from institutions
rather
than from individual doctors and other health workers. We ask
applicants to
tell us about their organisations: what they do, what other support
they
receive, and exactly what materials they need. In this way we can
ensure, as
far as possible, that the information is relevant and of high quality.
The
fund can provide books, journals, and CD Roms from the BMJ Publishing
Group
at very low cost, but it can also donate other publishers' material at
discounted prices, bought through the BMJ Bookshop.

The fund does not have a distribution network. We arrange and pay for
postage of consignments and always ask applicants for advice on the
best way
to send them. In this way we have provided books requested by medical
centres and libraries in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Somaliland,
Uganda, Nigeria, Iraq, Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. But we realised
early
on that supporting existing distributors would be a good way to use at
least
part of the money. That's why we have worked closely with a British
charity,
Book Aid International. Book Aid has already distributed across
sub-Saharan
Africa 3500 copies of the newly revised ABC of AIDS, which the fund
paid for
as a special print run.(1) A similar scheme is now under way for the
new BMJ
book International Child Health. In addition, the fund has allowed Book
Aid
to come to the BMJ warehouse and choose a variety of books to send to
their
extensive network of needy organisations.

Although the information fund is primarily for organisations in poorer
countries, we have also donated requested books to two centres in the
United
Kingdom. Both help refugee doctors prepare for the United Kingdom's
Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board (PLAB) test, a cause that
the
fund is happy to support.

We haven't been able to say yes to everyone. We couldn't fund some
applications, either because we were unable to gather sufficient
information
about the institutions concerned or because the projects they described
were
too far removed from our terms of reference. We have also turned down
requests from individuals, although we have directed them to a scheme
that
matches them with BMJ readers who want to donate their used journals
and
books directly.(2)

The BMA/BMJ information fund is one of several initiatives to plug the
information gap between rich and poor countries. The BMJ and studentBMJ
are
freely available on the web to everybody worldwide. And more than 100
of the
world's poorest countries now have free web access to the electronic
versions of the BMJ Publishing Group's 23 specialist journals and its
evidence based compendium Clinical Evidence.(3) Many other publishers
offer
similar web access to well over 1000 of the world's best biomedical
journals, either directly or through schemes such as
FreeMedicalJournals.com
(www.freemedicaljournals.com) and the Health InterNetwork: Access to
Research Initiative (HINARI).(4)

These schemes will be of limited usefulness, however, if the
information
they provide isn't relevant to the people who need to use it in their
learning and practice. (5,6) The BMA/BMJ information fund is trying to
get
round this by donating exactly what people tell us they want. If you
would
like to apply to the fund on behalf of a medical school, library,
hospital,
health centre, or medical association in an area of great need, please
email
us a detailed request, using the application form on bmj.com.

Trish Groves, assistant editor.

BMJ, (tgroves@bmj.com)

Sallie Nicholas, head, International Department, BMA.
John Hudson, publisher.

1.  Book Aid International. Annual review 2001-2002.
www.bookaid.org/resources/downloads/ar.pdf (accessed 6 Nov 2002).
2.  Minerva. BMJ 2001; 322: 1498[Free Full Text].
3.  Smith R, Williamson A. BMJ journals free to the developing world.
BMJ ,
2002:324:380.
4.  Health InterNetwork. Health InterNetwork Access to Research
Inititative.
www.healthinternetwork.org (accessed 6 Nov 2002).
5.  Vass A. Medical journals can reduce global health inequality,
conference
told. BMJ 2002; 324: 444[Free Full Text].
6.  Shaywitz DA, Ausiello DA. The 15% solution for majority health
concerns.
Nature webdebates.
www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/health.html (accessed 6
Nov
2002).





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