PHA-Exchange> BMA/BMJ Information Fund

George(s) Lessard media at web.net
Fri Feb 7 22:07:32 PST 2003 

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Fri, 7 Feb 2003 07:19:57 +0100
From:           	health at inasp.info
To:             	hif-net at who.int
Subject:        	[HIF-net at WHO] BMA/BMJ Information 
Fund

[Forwarded from the BMJ website <www.bmj.com>, with permission. 
Please note:
"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 [the BMA/BMJ] a detailed request, using the 
application
form on bmj.com."]

BMJ 2003;326:298 (8 February)

Editorial:
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 at bmj.com>

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

Footnotes

Competing interests: JH and TG are both employees of the BMJ 
Publishing
Group and SN is employed by BMA. They do not benefit directly 
from the
purchase and distribution of BMJ books and journals through the 
fund.

The BMA/BMJ Information Fund's activity report 2000-1 and an 
application
form appear on bmj.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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).

___________________________________________
'HIF-net at WHO': working together to improve access to reliable 
information for healthcare workers and health professionals in 
developing and transitional countries.  Send list messages to <hif-
net at who.int>. To join the list, send an email to <health at inasp.info> 
with name, organization, country, and brief description of 
professional interests.

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