GO TO CMA Home
GO TO Inside CMA
GO TO Advocacy and Communications
GO TO Member Services
GO TO Publications
GO TO Professional Development
GO TO Clinical Resources

GO TO What's New
GO TO Contact CMA
GO TO Web Site Search
GO TO Web Site Map


CMAJ
CMAJ - May 18, 1999JAMC - le May 18, 1999

Sending CMAJ abroad

CMAJ 1999;160:1431

I was impressed and encouraged by your decision to send CMAJ and the Canadian Journal of Surgery to some libraries in developing countries [full text].1 I was a health care professional, graduate student and academic in Nigeria between 1989 and 1998 and found the available libraries to be inadequate. Most Nigerian libraries cannot afford to purchase periodicals regularly, and researchers spend a considerable amount of time and money seeking literature from abroad. Supplementary services provided by agencies such as the British Council and the US Information Agency are commendable, but they cannot help readers in many different parts of the country.

Most states in Nigeria do not have digital phone systems; this means that access to the Internet is either impossible or extremely expensive, even when online journals are available without cost. I encourage physicians who discard periodicals after reading them to consider donating them to needy libraries.

Iruka Okeke
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
University of Maryland
Baltimore, Md.
iokeke@umaryland.edu

Comments Send a letter to the editor
Envoyez une lettre à la rédaction

Reference
  1. Haddad H, MacLeod S. Access to medical and health information in the developing world: an essential tool for change in medical education. CMAJ 1999;160(1):63-4.