DOCUMENTATION AND SCIENTIFIC
COMMUNICATION SERVICE

The Documentation Service has been created in relationship with the collaboration between the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and the UNESCO for the collection and storing of documents dealing with AIDS and AIDS-related problems concerning all possible aspects such as prevention, social problems, medical health information, AIDS and pregnancy, sexual education and youth, and many other themes. While the foreign publications came from UNESCO, WHO, and other international organisations, the material in Italian language has partly been provided by the Ministry of Health (AIDS Commission) and by various related associations. The Documentation Serviceon AIDS is actually located at the scientific library of the “Spallanzani” Institute. Actually, the Documentation Service on AIDS exposes already more than 300 titles, books, journals, audio-visual and other material, offering a broad range of subject-related and editorial information. This service is at disposal for anyone who wants to obtain more profound knowledge on the pathology of AIDS and related problems, for personal as well as professional reasons.
In this context shall be acknowledged the collaboration of all groups, organisations and or single persons, who kindly answered to our requests by providing us publications and other materials, thus participating actively in the construction of the data bank.

The activities developed by the Documentation Service during 1998-99 were:
- Seminaries on AIDS prevention in different schools of Rome and province - General information and consultation service open to the public - Scientific exposition on AIDS presented in the context of the cultural summer event “Estate Romana”. This exposure was held at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and was composed of 12 informative posters, an interactive table, a model of the HIV virus and the world-wide symbol for solidarity, a big red ribbon. Moreover, the exposition was opened to the public at the “L. Spallanzani” Institute for six months.
- A specific web page has been created in occasion of the exposure, and a specific UNESCO web page was created at the site of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”.

The Documentation Service located in the Scientific Library of the National Institute for Infectious Diseases "Lazzaro Spallanzani" exposes books, journals, audio-visual and other material, offering a broad range of subject-related and editorial information about AIDS. This service is at disposal for anyone who wants to obtain more profound knowledge on AIDS and related problems for personal and/or professional reasons, focusing on the pathology of the disease, prevention and statistical data. The Documentation Service work with the networks activated in this field by the UNESCO and by other UN Agencies. Some of the collected material in Italian language was provided by the Italian Ministry of Health (AIDS Commission, ISS) and by various associations working in the field of AIDS and related problems. International publications were provided by UNESCO, UNAIDS, WHO, UNICEF, FAO and other organisations.

The material in the HIV database was collected and stored using the WinIsis software produced by UNESCO and freely distributed in Italy by DBA. The main objective of the Documentation Service is to continuously update the material collected and make all documents disposable for public purpose.

The activity plan of the 2000-2001 was to implement, collect and store of new documents dealing with AIDS and AIDS-related problems concerning all possible aspects. Moreover, a specific aim of the Centre was to work in close contact with UNAIDS Documentation Centre. All the activities of the Documentation Service were performed in close contact with the Scientific Library of the Spallanzani Institute. Finally, a special attention was directed to provide informations and consultations to general public attending the International Centre and to promote contacts with national and international institutions for most recent information on AIDS projects. Specifically, the following activities were carried out at the Documentation Centre during the period April 2000-:March 2001:

· We implemented the collection of documents dealing with AIDS and AIDS-related problems with particular emphasis to the problems related to HIV infection in Africa, prevention, social problems, medical health information, AIDS and pregnancy, sexual education and youth, statistical data concerning AIDS epidemic and other themes.

· We worked in close contact with UNAIDS Documentation Centre (UNAIDS contributes regularly sending free materials such as books, leaflets and technical reports ).

· The work was performed in close contact with the Scientific Library of the Spallanzani Institute, where it was spent some of the work-time (data-entries, collection and storing of all the documents)

· Information and consultation service to general public attending the International Centre and at the Spallanzani Library.

· Maintaining and promoting contacts with national and international institutions for most recent information on AIDS publications, Meeting and Projects. In the following graphs, the number and type of publications of the AIDS database and their respective sources are reported.

Fig.1. Panel A: Number of titles in HIV-database. Panel B: Percentage of different titles in HIV database. *Others: films, posters, guides, articles, slides, abstract books, postcards, case studies.

Fig.2. Organisations that released the material collected in the HIV database. Others: Non-profit Associations in the field of AIDS and related problems; Publishing Companies.



In collaboration with Dr.Angelo De Martino (for graphic realisation) and with the supervision of Prof. V.Colizzi, we are preparing a Web-Site describing all the items related to the CNR UNESCO Agreement from the beginning.

The Web-Site will describe all the documents produced during the last years of activity, such as CNR annual-reports, fellowships, research projects, meetings and documentation activities. A special space will be provided to ICAERI and CIRBA, to the UNESCO Interdisciplinary Chair in Biotechnology and to the ROSTE office. All text describing the agreements with different Institutions will be available online with links to the CNR , the UNESCO, and the National Institute for Infectious Diseases L.Spallanzani. The material inserted in the Web-Site will be shown in the same language as it was produced. This site is actually under construction and could be accessed at the following address: http//www.uniroma2.it/unesco (in the near future the address will change as http//www.unesco.uniroma2.it).

The future perspectives of the Documentation Service will be to continue to improve the AIDS database and to give a detailed description of the collected material online on the Web-Site, allowing an more easy consultation to a large public. Titles, abstracts and cover images of outstanding interest will be available online. Consequently, a service of documentation delivery could be also activated with the possibility of downloading specific documents upon requests. Finally, our future aims concern the creation of specific databases on emerging HIV-related pathologies such as tuberculosis, hepatitis-C-infection and metabolism dysregulation.