When you find your self in a place where there is no access to journals and specialized literature, it becomes very difficult to carry serious research and it may even become difficult also to carry practical professional activities. Fortunately, in the field of natural and life sciences, there are two major initiatives that provide access to literature for environmental science research:
1. OARE (Online Access to Research in the Environment).
2. AGORA (Access to Global Research in Agriculture).
Those two initiatives, together with HINARI (Access to Research in Health Programme) are part of the Research4Life research programme. Research4Life provides free or low cost access to specialized literature with high reputation in the scientific community.
This research programme is a public-private consortium between institutions such as Yale University, FAO, UNEP, WHO, and of course the publishers of the corresponding editorials.
Eligible institutions are most universities and research institutions, public and governmental institutions from countries with low GDP. For example, Bolivia belongs to a category eligible for free access to the Science magazine and products from editorials such as the Nature publishing group, Springer, Taylor and Francis, Wiley & Sons, and others. Unfortunately there is no access to the journals of Elsevier (although in the site it says that it is possible) and the AGU group (e.g., Water Resources Research), for example.
This is a great chance to update the curricula at universities, and also to update our knowledge in order to provide a better service within our professional activities. My home university has already applied for the OARE and the application process for the AGORA is ongoing. I will get a personal subscription for the AGU, perhaps later I will get a subscription for the Water LED Group. Then, time to have fun.
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