The 43rd Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL) is currently being held in San Juan, Puerto Rico during June 9 to 14, 2013.
The Virtual Health Library (VHL) is one of the subjects presented at a Plenary Session on “Redefining the development of the information professional to Satisfy the information needs of the clientele through a Health Research Commons territory in the Caribbean”.
Carmen Santos-Corrada, VHL Puerto Rico, presented the development of the VHL in the country, specially the interaction spaces that are being developed for collaborative network and users. Ernesta Greenidge, of Trinidad and Tobago, presented the development of the national VHL and the actions that are being made to strengthen the network and consequently the revitalization of the MedCarib Network and database. She also spoke of actions taken by Ministry of Health, Trinidad and Tobago in providing access to health iformation for members of the public. Verônica Abdala, gave an overview of the role of networks for the development of the VHL in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean, especially for the register of the health literature produced in the various countries. The different possibilities of interoperation and collaboration were presented. Participants from Haiti expressed interest in activating their participation in VHL, and the possibility of incorporating a database of medicinal plants. Comment and enquiry about access to information about health legislation was the subject of questions from one of the participants in this session.
BIREME‘s participation in ACURIL, together with the current coordinator of the Regional MedCarib Network, Ernesta Greenidge, is facilitating the reactivation of the collaboration of countries such as Suriname, as well as the integration of new countries, such as Haiti.
More information:
ACURIL 2013 Program: http://www.acuril2013puertorico.org/
Presentation of Carmen Santos-Corrada
Presentation of Ernesta Greenidge
Presentation of Verônica Abdala