Components of Virtual Library

Building the Virtual Health Sciences of the Eastern Mediterranean

Towards a Virtual Health Sciences Library
Syed Ahmed Naqvi*, Muhammad Khurshid Alam**, Azra Qureshi*, *The Aga Khan University, **Ziauddin Medical University

ABSTRACT
Health sciences libraries in Pakistan are passing through a transitional period of using digitized information sources along paper based books and journals. Institutions in private sector are allocating a substantial amount of their budget for library automation C D-ROM and Internet facilities. Some of the libraries have Online Public Access Catalogs available for their users who can access library resources from their departments with out coming to the library. The Aga Khan University, Karachi, and Ziauddin Medical University Karachi are moving towards creating a virtual health sciences library. The Aga Khan University has already laid a fiber optic backbone to connect its various departments with the library electronically. The library users have a facility to access Internet and CD-Rom databases. After complete computerization (acquisition, cataloging, circulation) of the library it has started developing a Library of Images on its intranet, which would be accessed from all teaching departments including hospital, and residents’ hostels on the campus. This paper deals with the steps being taken in Pakistan to make library information available anywhere anytime.

Pakistan has 76 libraries of different sizes and capacities. Of these 30 libraries have Medline on CD-ROM and some have capability of electronic access. About 100 journals are published in the field of health and biomedical sciences but only one journal the Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association is indexed in Index Medicus: 30 journals are covered in Index Medicus for WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region1. There are several indexing and abstracting tools that have been developed, e.g. Medical Literature in Pakistan (MEDLIP) but there is a need for a coherent...