Getting free access to journals: A guide for developing countries
Scientists and institutions in developing countries have historically suffered from a lack of access to advanced and up-to-date peer-reviewed scholarly literature. Below we have listed some schemes which provide free or low cost online access to research in developing countries;
Together the three United Nations sponsored programmes—HINARI, AGORA and OARE—form Research4Life which provides developing countries with access to and training for academic and professional peer-reviewed content online.
HINARI is managed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with Yale University Library. 3300 public institutions in 108 eligible countries have already registered for access to over 5500 peer-reviewed journals covering medicine, nursing and related health and social sciences
AGORA is managed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in partnership with Cornell University. Over 1600 institutions have registered for access to over 1200 high quality international journals covering agriculture, fisheries, food, nutrition, veterinary science and related biological, environmental and social sciences.
OAR is managed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in partnership with Yale University. It provides access to more than 2000 scientific journals in a wide range of disciplines relating to the natural environment, including environmental toxicology and pollution, zoology, botany, ecology, environmental chemistry, geology, hydrology, oceanography, meteorology, climatology, geography, environmental economics, environmental law and policy, conservation policy and planning, environmental biotechnology, environmental engineering, energy, and many other disciplines.
INASP runs a Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERI - www.inasp.info/peri) that delivers access to all their online journals at a reduced price to countries in the developing world.
SciELO is a bibliographic database and a digital library of open access journals. The SciELO's model is used for cooperative electronic publishing in Latin American countries.
