Where there is no Internet

In many regions, the health district centers are staffed by nurses, midwives, and community health workers who, having finished their basic studies, receive little in the way of continuing education, as libraries rarely exist at the district level or in regional hospitals. The distribution of CD-ROMs to developing countries is an important initiative, which has proven to be a valuable source of health information. For example, the health-related CD-ROMs from TALC (Teaching-aids At Low Cost, http://www.talcuk.org) and those distributed by the WHO and the joint United Nations Programme for HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) are much appreciated by their users. The CD-ROM is an important tool for information delivery in Africa because it does not take up a lot of space and shipping it is inexpensive.

Unfortunately, there are still many areas in the developing world that have neither computers nor a reliable electricity supply. Thus, in spite of the rapid development of information and communications technologies, the gap between “the haves and have-nots” continues to blight isolated areas (those outside a capital city). In these areas, the appropriate solution to information access is still printed material. In response to this need for printed health information, WHO librarians created the Blue Trunk Library (BTL) project.

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