Helena Bouzkova*, Eva Sofie Lesenkova**, Jarmila Potomkova***,
*National Medical Library 
Sokolska 54 - 121 32 Prague (Czech Republic)
**Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education, Prague
***Palacký University Faculty of Medicine, Olomouc
bouzkova@nlk.anet.cz

At present, health and medical information services in the Czech Republic are provided by 121 medical libraries accredited by the Ministry of Healthcare. Out of this figure, 94 libraries (nearly 80 %) have access to the Internet. In the past 2 years, more and more of them have been introducing and enhancing their digital services by including new "clickable" paths to the online full content of journals. These enhancements help integrate the traditionally separated tasks of discovery and use of medical information, give end-users more freedom in accessing fulltext documents, and remarkably change a system of document delivery in the context of national interlibrary services.
 

How to access online biomedical journals

1. All the medical and health libraries with fast Internet connectivity are entitled to get registered for and benefit from online fulltext services based on national licences:

1.1. EIFL Direct (Electronic Information for Libaries)

Copyright: EBSCO Publishing
This project has been funded by the Open Society Fund and its part - BioMedical FullTEXT Collection - represents a comprehensive database with over 550 full text titles. The collection can be searched separately, but allows users to link to full text from citations databases.

1.2 PROQUEST 

Copyright: Bell &Howell Information and Learning Company
ProQuest Medical Library combines MEDLINE indexing with fulltext articles published in more than 350 medical titles. Health Module offers 133 journals covering physical or mental health.

1.3. OVID Medline

Copyright: Ovid Technologies
The Core Biomedical Collection enables authorized access to full text versions of 15 major medical journals with MEDLINE links.

2. Groups of institutions including medical settings have established short-term consortia and signed test licence agreements with the following publishers:

2.1. Springer-Link 

Copyright: Springer
41 Czech scientific libraries (including 9 medical ones) signed a licence agreement offering electronic access to more than 480 journals (including nearly 135 biomedical titles) available through LINK.

2.2. Sciencedirect

Copyright: Elsevier Science
Czech scientific institutions represented by the State Technical Library and an information broker SUWECO established a consortium enabling access to 82 scholarly journals published by Elsevier Science with hyperlinks to bibliographic databases.

3. The National Medical Library in Prague plays a vital role in the process of sharing information resources and their dissemination. It currently subscribes to nearly 600 biomedical journals and provides online access to more than 600 titles. A special attention is paid to building a national union catalogue of biomedical periodicals accessible online at www.nlk.anet.cz. It contains complete information about each periodical, i.e. bibliographic data, holdings, links to publisher´s sites and fulltext articles if offered online. At present, there is only local intramural access to fulltext journal articles for the registered users of the National Medical Library. A remote access is one the most important problems to be solved in the near future.
 

Prospective Problem-Solving

Project MEDVIK

The National Medical Library in Prague is the coordinator of the project supported by the grant agency of the Czech Ministry of Education for the period of 2001-2003 (MEDVIK). The participants are 3 top scholarly institutions, namely Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education, Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine and Institute of Haematology and Blood Transfusion. . The main goal of the project is to build up a virtual medical library enabling authorized access to fulltext journal articles and other documents for remote users with a special emphasis on:

Conclusion

The aim of this contribution was to make a short survey of the current possibilities of online access to biomedical electronic journals in the Czech Republic and describe perspectives of effective coordination of this process at the national level.