Background

In Indonesia Health Scientific and Technology Information which is mostly well kept in the libraries, then very limited utilized. It is among others caused by poor access to the libraries.  The poor access is caused by distance between the libraries and the users; the distance among the libraries; and also caused by the management of the libraries which is not user need oriented.  Since  1980 a collaboration among the libraries has been launched for increasing the access. The strategy is useful enough and the services have been better and faster.  But the distance itself is still  a great constraint and time consuming document delivery services often make the user complaining.

Since early  1990’s  Internet has been developed and become one of reliable media to make broader globally access. The most popular Internet service is  World Wide Web (WWW), which enable searching many information stored in servers  located anywhere worldwide without distance and time limitation.  The service is slow but sure then taking over conventional ways to disseminate information such as books and journals. 

National Institute of Health Research and Development, Ministry of Health (The NIHRD) as Hellis National Focal Point, collaborating with  WHO-SEARO, are assessing the possibility and feasibility of utilization of the service for managing  and disseminating health scientific and technology  information in Indonesia. Collaborating with the Library of Bogor Agriculture Institute and Bandung Technology Institute, the NIHRD are on trial of utilizing a software  namely  Isisonline. The software has been developed by Bandung Technology Institute and aimed to  convert databases using CDS/ISIS format into Web format. The CDS/ISIS is a software developed by UNESCO and used widely by libraries to manage their databases.  Using the new software databases of the libraries are now accessible through Internet. 

The NIHRD has held a Training Workshop for library technicians of Hellis participating libraries to introduce the software, in Jakarta, 4 to 8 February 2002.  The activity was supported by WHO-SEARO budget. The participants came from  Medan, Surabaya, Malang, Yogyakarta, Bandung, Bogor and Jakarta. To follow up the activity, the NIHRD then held a consultative meeting participated by head of libraries and users (researchers and research managers) on 26 to  28 June 2002 in Jakarta