Health eLibrary Training Now Globally Available

Staff Writer | Duke Today | October 26, 2011

Health and educational institutions in low-income countries worldwide can now take advantage of free e-training materials on conducting effective scientific literature searches, thanks to a joint effort of Duke University and the World Health Organization.

The training materials,  developed by the Duke Global Health Institute and the Duke Medical Center Library include videos, exercises and self-assessment quizzes to teach faculty, staff and students in low-income countries the fundamentals of the HINARI Access to Research in Health Programme.  HINARI, which is a partnership of the WHO and major publishers, gives institutions in more than 100 countries access to one of the world's largest collections of medical literature.

The training shows users how to find the full text of a journal article and how to do basic and advanced searches in PubMed. Developed by Duke's Marc Sperber and Megan von Isenburg, the training also includes a glossary of key terms and sub-titles, audio files, and text transcripts to accommodate differences in language and learning styles. Designed with low-bandwidth in mind for areas where high-speed internet is not available, the training is freely accessible on the internet and offers cost-free options for downloading and ordering on CD-ROM...