Nicholas Martland Not everything is 'e', advice on tracing public health resources which are still available in print only!

1. Not everything is ‘e’: accessing print
resources
a presentation by Nicholas Martland
ALISS / BL Global Aspects of Public Health Workshop,
The British Library, 10th November 2011

2. Not everything is ‘e’
Not everything is available Not everything is published in
electronically english
Not everything is published in
North America & the EU
2

3. Wider issues – online/print and English/other languages
 Not all resources are digitised and available online
 Many online resources are available only via subscription-based
databases requiring institutional access or individual payment
 Even where material is freely available/open access not everyone has the
skills or the infrastructure to access online – the digital divide
 Dominance of UK / EU and North American publishing – yet much
published elsewhere both in English and other languages
 The convenience and apparent breadth of online resources
(particularly in academic institutions) might distort research through a
neglect of:
 print-only material;
 developing countries’ research and publishing output;
 non-English language resources
3

4. English dominates … but not everything is in the English
language
 English is the language of academic and professional STM publishing –
increasingly even in the non-Anglophone world
 Many academic journals in China, Japan, the Hispanic and Arab worlds
now publish English abstracts and increasingly articles in English
 English still the dominant language of the Internet and commercial
databases
BUT
 The mass of the population in the developing/newly industrialising world
are educated and informed in languages other than English.
 Health information - from official publications to popular literature - in the
developing/newly industrialising world is produced in languages
other than English – even in the Anglophone world, in countries
such as India and Malaysia
4

5. “Beyond English: accessing the global epidemiological
literature”
“Beyond English: accessing the global epidemiological
literature” has a range of articles – from the philosophical to
the practical - relating to issues concerning literature in
languages other than English in the fields of epidemiology and
public health.
http://www.ete-online.com/series/1742-7622-Eng
The open access journal Emerging Themes in Epidemiology
5

6. Other issues particularly relevant to the developing world
Place of traditional / alternative systems of medicine in health care
Ayurvedic, Unani, Siddha, Chinese medicine, &c.
Information often not available in English nor online
Traditional belief systems / folklore / religious & cultural issues
Medicinal plants and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
fear that “Big Pharma” poaching medicinal plants and plant products to
exploit with little return for local communities
Generic medicines and IPR
Western pharmaceutical companies concerned about loss of income from
generic medicines produced in Brazil, Cuba, India, &c.
Issues of literacy / Public health education / Access to online resources
6

7. UK library holdings – publishing beyond the UK and the US
 The British Library and SOAS Library are major repositories for
printed and online resources in Arabic, Asian and African languages
and for material in English and other European languages on the
Middle East, Asia and Africa, relating to public health
 The British Library and ULRLS (University of London Research
Library Services) Latin American and Caribbean Studies Collection
are major repositories for printed and online resources in Spanish
and Portuguese and for material on Latin America and the
Caribbean, relating to public health
 Other university and research libraries also hold important English
language collections on Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific,
Latin America and the Caribbean, and also material in languages
other than English. Check COPAC http://copac.ac.uk/
7

8. Search terms - changes in terminology
 Terms change and older terms become inappropriate or redundant
as the old, bi-polar divisions between the developed and developing
world become less meaningful – but they remain important as
search terms, particularly when searching older catalogues and
indexes
First World / Third World
The North / The South
Developed World / Developing World
Industrialised West / Industrialising World
Post-Industrial World / Industrialising World
8

9. Search strategies: Geographic search terms for nations
 For large countries also search at state/province level:
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh as well as India
Queensland, Northern Territory as well as Australia
São Paulo, Bahia, Pará as well as Brazil
 Archaic terms might still be used in indexes, catalogues & even online:
Ceylon for Sri Lanka
Malaya for Malaysia
Gold Coast for Ghana
British Guiana for Guyana
(particularly useful for research into the history of medicine and public
health)
9

10. Search strategies: broader & narrower terms
 Search under broader terms such as Asia-Pacific; Southeast Asia; Middle
East; Latin America; Organisation of Islamic Cooperation; ASEAN and The
Commonwealth as well as under names of individual countries and
states/provinces within countries
 Combine geographic names with broader terms such as “Health” or
“Disease” or with more specific terms such as “AIDS”; “Malaria”; “Cholera”;
“Primary health care” and “Immunization”
 Use non-English words for “health” : salud (Spanish); saude (Portuguese);
sức khỏe (Vietnamese); kesihatan / kesehatan (Malay / Indonesian); sağlık
(Turkish); wèi shēng 卫生 [hygiene] or jiàn kāng 健康 [health] (Chinese) ;
‫(الصحة‬Arabic).
….this is a particularly useful way of locating journal titles and official
publications, including statistics
10

11. Accessing Monographs
Majority of monographs still in print/paper format. Using appropriate search
terms, search individual library catalogues or databases such as Copac and
Worldcat
http://copac.ac.uk/ http://www.worldcat.org/
Some monographs are available electronically and in print; some are only available
electronically:
- PDF files (official bodies, academic departments, NGOs)
- freely available online books (e.g., googlebooks)
- ebooks (either purchased individually or as a package)
- POD (Print on Demand)
11

12. Conference proceedings
Although more-recent conference proceedings are sometimes
available online, older printed conference proceedings will probably
remain a low priority for digitisation.
The British Library has probably the most comprehensive and easily
accessible collection of conference publications in the world.
http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/atyourdesk/docsupply/collection/confs/
Check the BL or COPAC catalogues using “conference” or
“proceedings” together with a subject and a country name as search
terms.
12

13. Research institute and university department publications
 Research institutes and university departments publish
journals, reports and sometimes monographs
 Such publications cover a broad range of research topics
that can include material on public health
 Particularly in the developing/newly industrialising world,
these publications are not likely to be available online and
might be the only source of published research from a country
13

14. Official / government publications
 Many official publications, reports and parliamentary papers
are now available online … but many are not …
 Older publications might not have been digitised
 Many developing/newly industrialising countries official
publications are not available online
14

15. Indexes and bibliographic databases
Although most bibliographic databases and indexes are now
available online, much of the material cited is only available in
printed format.
There are bibliographic databases specifically related to
health, such as the WHO Virtual Health Library
There are region- and country-specific databases, such as the
Bibliography of Asian Studies and the Australian Informit
database
There are databases/indexes that appear to be of no
relevance to public health ….
15

16. Index Islamicus
An example of a resource that is probably generally perceived as of no
relevance to public health issues is Index Islamicus : a bibliography of
books, articles and reviews on Islam and the Muslim world.
Indexes material on Islam, the Middle East and the Muslim world.
The “Muslim world” covers all countries that have a Muslim or Muslim
minority population - all of Asia & the Middle East, including China; India, Sri
Lanka, Burma and Nepal not just Pakistan and Bangladesh; Africa; and also
Europe and North America.
Religious and theological subjects are only part of Index Islamicus’
coverage. It covers the arts and humanities, the social sciences and applied
sciences.
Good coverage of public health issues.
16

17. Any questions?
Any questions?
17

18. The end ….
Thank you
Gracias
Obrigado
Terima kasih
Cảm ơn bạn
谢谢
ً
‫شكرا‬
Teşekkür ederim
18