Intended for healthcare professionals

Editorials

New equities of information in an electronic age

BMJ 1995; 310 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.310.6993.1480 (Published 10 June 1995) Cite this as: BMJ 1995;310:1480
  1. Christopher Zielinski
  1. Director Health and Biomedical Information, World Health Organisation, Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, PO Box 1517, Alexandria 21511, Egypt

    The Third World needs First World information—how about the other way round?

    The developing countries of the Third World are far from homogeneous. Nevertheless, as consumers of information the countries have a stark regularity of features that allows for convenient grouping: most of their medical libraries subscribe to fewer than 50 journals, less than one library in 10 has a computer or CD-ROM player; and budgets for new books, software, and online charges are tiny or non-existent. Telephone and telecommunications systems are sparse, unreliable, and expensive, so use of networks is rare. Where access to networks exists it is used mainly for simple communications rather than to scan health literature.

    To add to this unpromising perspective it is now clear that the cost of information is overtaking the cost of information technology. As the price of computers drops and as countries invest in modernising their telecommunications the basic cost of content, reinforced by copyright protecting encryption and tagging systems, will become the principal economic barrier to the flow of information. The “information poor,” particularly in developing countries, will remain worst off.

    Many non-government organisations have been helping developing countries to acquire health literature and contemporary technology. But such well intentioned projects hardly ever include information from the Third World. Whatever the donors' intentions, Western information aid to the Third World usually serves as a vehicle for opening up markets in developing countries to Western information providers. The implicit assumption is that the information superhighway is a one way street from the First World to the Third.

    One reason for this is the general perception that Third World information is not applicable in the First World. Certainly, developing countries often lack a sufficiently robust scientific and informational infrastructure to support basic research. As a result they often cannot provide the academic and economic incentives to produce the associated research literature. Their journals generally have linguistic, financial, and production difficulties undreamt of by their Western counterparts, leading to irregular publication, indifferent aesthetic qualities, and poor editing and proof reading. Despite all these factors, and even though many of the journals are not subject to stringent peer review, they are nevertheless well worth exploring.

    Another reason for the lack of Third World literature in global databases is the simple fact that it is very difficult to find. International services such as Medline or the Science Citation Index typically index some 3000 journals—98% from the First World and only 2% from the Third World. This is a starting point for the vicious cycle affecting Third World literature: joumals that are not indexed are rarely stocked by librarians, hence rarely cited by authors, and hence rarely indexed.

    Extreme complacency

    The lack of interest in Third World literature is also a symptom of extreme complacency. Despite the acknowledged weaknesses of the Third World's abilities to collect and disseminate information can we believe that all knowledge lies in the West and, more particularly—since over 80% of all scientific research published in indexed journals is in English—in the English speaking part of the West?1 Are we right in suggesting that the rest of the world adds nothing to the body of knowledge? Even if we should presume that most of the world's valid, important biomedical information originates in the West—and there is evidence (see, for example, Gaillard2) to suggest that this is wilful self delusion—what about at least a minority contribution from the rest? The 2% participation in international scientific discourse allowed by Western indexing services is simply too little to account for the scientific output of 80% of the world.

    This is particularly true in disciplines such as medicine, for diseases are no respecters of frontiers, especially with increased air travel and the resurgence of communicable diseases such as measles and tuberculosis. These diseases, as well as unique information on such topics as AIDS, tropical biodiversity, and traditional medicine, are particularly well covered in the local journals—when they can be found: “Microbiologist colleagues at Jos … were busy forging links between traditional herbal medicines … and modern science. Few outside Nigeria were able to read about this work.”3

    To countervail such closed systems of reference, projects such as ExtraMED, ExtraSCI, and AgROM Extra have been set up (respectively, by the World Health Organisation, Unesco, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation), presenting on a CD-ROM each month the indexed full text of articles from the best journals published in developing countries.4 But this is a drop in the electronic ocean.

    Information from all sources should be accorded equal access, equal economic value, and equal rights. This credo does not insist that the balance of information flow should be equal but, rather, asserts the principle of equity. We should also recognise the mutual interdependence of our information needs. Thus, even if it is only out of self interest, the West should open the gates of major indexes and networks to the countries of the Third World and buy, disseminate, and study their information.

    References

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