E-drug: Free journal access (cont'd)
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Dear Friends,
First of all, I'd like to start by thanking Publishers of Journals like
BMJ and their sponsors for making the journal available online for
free. It means a lot to me and to many in Africa. Fortunately, right
now I have good access to the Internet almost indistinguishable
from anywhere in most parts of the world. But this is the exception
in my country as the institutions I access the Internet is in a
different world. Earlier I used to use Healthnet, a store and forward
technology (which hosts this online technology) through which I
had subscribed to the contents by e-mail and then using GETWEB. I
used to get the individual articles in about 24 hours time. This
healthnet system is free and much better that the print BMJ
considering the fact that one can get it in 24 hours compared to ten
to fifteen days, that is if you afford to subscribe for it.
Unfortunately this system is not being used for lack of awareness
as well as lack of low end modems and computers in the range of
(14.4 for modem and 386 for the PC)
It breaks my heart when I see all these free information not being
used in Africa and at the same time people complaining of shortage
of information amidst unfathomable wealth of information.
Despite the fact that we have various obstacles in Africa regarding
access to Internet for various reasons, chief among them being poor
or no access to the Internet, inability to pay, inability to afford the
gadgets and prohibiting policy, lack of awareness to the already
existing low cost high impact technologies such as Healthnet is
very important.
There is also another factor. In Africa health professionals and
others are just scared of technology and often don't see it as an
important adjunct for continuing medical education and access to
health information.
In 1999, I organized the first ICT awareness creating conference
and workshop during which time only five out of 350 physicians
who attended the conference said they ever touched computers.
Among others, they were mesmerized to see BMJ online. After this
conference subscription to Healthnet increased by 60% in just six
months after that. Unfortunately it is difficult to organize such
awareness creating conferences on regular basis due to difficulty in
getting assistance.
I want to commend the BMJ publishing group in their effort to make
their online publications free for poor countries such as Ethiopia.
But I feel that we all need to do more in making access better that
it is for it to truly be useful.
As for me it was hard to keep in touch with BMJ if it had not been
for the Internet. Thanks to the Internet and BMJ's online presence, I
could not only read it online I could also take part in rapid response
which makes the site really wonderful. Here I must point out that,
though, my contribution was published on the print version as well I
am yet to see it on the print BMJ as I don't have access to it. Such
is the reality.
Thank you once again for making it possible and letting us know.
Yohannes Damtew MD
Editor-in Chief
JEMP
P.O.Box 9051
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
[Thanks Yohannes for pointing to this often forgotten wonderful
piece of technology! For those of you who would like to give it a
try, here's how to use GetWeb:
SATELLIFE's GetWeb server allows you to request the text content
of World Wide Web pages through e-mail. To get information from a
particular World Wide Web page such as the World Health
Organization (WHO) Home Page, you would:
1. Compose a new e-mail message to the following address:
getweb@usa.healthnet.org
2. Leave the subject line blank. In the body of the message, type
the command GET followed by the URL (that is, the address) of the
Web page you want, for example
3. If your mailer software automatically inserts unwanted text (a
signature, for example) at the beginning or end of your message, an
error will occur.
Tips: Avoid typing errors or your message will not be processed.
Note that many URLs contain both uppercase and lowercase letters.
When typing the URL, be sure to preserve the case of all letters.
Remember to include the http:// component of the URL when you
enter in the get command.
Good luck! HH]
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