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.
Dr. Cristina
Costa
(ICAE RI) IRCCS L.Spallanzani
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