Latindex (Regional Cooperative Online

Information System An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, Information Processing and Management, store, and information distribution, distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, info ...

for Scholarly Journals from

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

, the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

) is a bibliographical information system available for free consultation. Established as a network in 1997, the project is based on the cooperation of 17 national resource centers that operate in a coordinated scheme for the gathering and dissemination of relevant information and data on the Iberoamerican journals. The aims of Latindex are disseminating, fostering and developing both the scientific and the editorial fields, and to fulfill their information needs in the best possible manner. Latindex was created following the recommendations arose in the First Workshop on Latin American Scientific Publications held in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1994. The idea was adopted by the

National Autonomous University of Mexico The National Autonomous University of Mexico (, UNAM) is a public university, public research university in Mexico. It has several campuses in Mexico City, and many others in various locations across Mexico, as well as a presence in nine countri ...

in 1995, and in February 1997, the First Technical Meeting was held in Mexico City with the commitment of four countries (Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela and Mexico). With the incorporation of Spain and Portugal in 1998, Latindex evolved towards an Iberoamerican system.

Products

1. Directory. It’s a Comprehensive inventory of scholarly journals. Available since 1997 it provides basic bibliographic data of each title such as publisher, contact address, subject coverage, prices, frequency, etc. The online version of the Directory contains detailed information of almost 17,000 journals from 30 countries. 2. Catalogue. Set online in March 2002. Being a subset of the Directory, it contains a selection of journals that fulfill a series of international quality criteria. Titles are classified according to a previously agreed international quality parameters such as peer review procedures, coverage in international databases, abstracts and keywords in more than one language, international editorial boards, among a total of 33 parameters for printed journals and 36 for electronic journals. The list of parameters met by every title is shown in each record. To date, more than 3,500 journals have been rated and included in this catalogue. 3. Electronic journals. Offers direct access to a growing collection of Iberoamerican online journals offering full text articles. Currently links to almost 3,000 titles.

Latindex website is also a valuable resource to find up-to-date information of materials on scientific journals practices and editorial standards, useful for librarians, researchers and students.edición de revistas científicas: guía de buenos usos''
/ref> Likewise, the site offers PowerPoint presentations from a number of seminars and workshops organized in several of the participant countries. The News Section presents information about events and news of the professional activities developed in the

Library and Information Science Library and information science (LIS)Library and Information Sciences is the name used in the Dewey Decimal Classification for class 20 from the 18th edition (1971) to the 22nd edition (2003). are two interconnected disciplines that deal with inf ...

field, mainly from Iberoamerica.

Participating institutions

The general coordination of the system is based in the Department of Latin American Bibliography, part of the Assistant Office for Information Services of the General Directorate for Libraries (DGB) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). In each participant country there is an institution responsible for the input of data to the system’s databases. *Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (

CONICET The National Scientific and Technical Research Council (, CONICET) is an Argentine government agency which directs and co-ordinates most of the scientific and technical research done in universities and institutes. History The National Scient ...

) (Argentina) *Centro Argentino de Información Científica y Tecnológica (CAICyT) (Argentina) *Instituto Brasileño de Información en Ciencia y Tecnología (IBICT) (Brazil) *Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica ( CONICYT) (Chile) *Departamento de Información (Chile) *Instituto Colombiano para el Desarrollo de la Ciencia y la Tecnología "Francisco José de Caldas" (COLCIENCIAS) (Colombia) *

Universidad de Costa Rica The University of Costa Rica (Spanish: ''Universidad de Costa Rica,'' abbreviated UCR) is a public university in the Republic of Costa Rica, in Central America. Its main campus, Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio, is located in San Pedro, Co ...

(Costa Rica) *Instituto de Información Científica y Tecnológica (IDICT) (Cuba) *Biblioteca Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (BNCT) (Cuba) *Universidad APEC (UNAPEC) (Dominican Republic) *Fundación para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FUNDACYT) (Ecuador) *Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina ( REDIAL) (France) *

Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala The Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC, ''University of San Carlos of Guatemala'') is the largest and oldest university of Guatemala; it is also the fourth founded in the Americas. Established in the Kingdom of Guatemala during the Spa ...

(Guatemala) *Biblioteca Central (Guatemala) *

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México The National Autonomous University of Mexico (, UNAM) is a public university, public research university in Mexico. It has several campuses in Mexico City, and many others in various locations across Mexico, as well as a presence in nine countri ...

(UNAM) (Mexico) *Dirección General de Bibliotecas (Mexico) *Dirección General de Servicios de Cómputo Académico (Mexico) *Instituto de Física (Mexico) * Universidad de Panamá (Panama) *Sistema de Bibliotecas (Panama) * Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONCYTEC) (Peru) *Centro Nacional de Documentación e Información Científica y Tecnológica (CENDICYT) (Peru) *Ministerio de Ciencia y Enseñanza Superior (Portugal) *Fundación para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (Portugal) *Serviço de Informação e Documentação (Portugal) *Universidad de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico) *Escuela Graduada de Ciencias y Tecnologías de la Información (Puerto Rico) * Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) (Spain) *Instituto de Estudios Documentales sobre Ciencia y Tecnología (ex-CINDOC) (Spain) *Ministerio del Poder Popular para Ciencia y Tecnología (Venezuela) *FONACIT - Centro de Documentación (Venezuela) An agreement was reached between Latindex and REDIAL (European Network for Information and Documentation on Latin America) in 2005 in order to include in Latindex those journals published in Europe which content was relevant to Latin American issues.

Events

Latindex Technical Meetings

A total of 14 annual technical meetings have been held since 1997 to date in the different participant countries:

Seminars and Workshops

Latindex has organized in Latin America, a series of seminars and workshops addressed to professional editors of scholarly journals with the objective of sharing experiences and practices about publishing standards and the editor’s work.

Funding

Additional support for the development of the system has been provided by the partners themselves. Specific activities have been supported in part by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

(Science Sector -Paris and regional Montevideo offices); the

International Council for Science The International Council for Science (ICSU, after its former name, International Council of Scientific Unions) was an international non-governmental organization devoted to international cooperation in the advancement of science. Its members ...

(through ICSU Press and COSTED); the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS); the

Organization of American States The Organization of American States (OAS or OEA; ; ; ) is an international organization founded on 30 April 1948 to promote cooperation among its member states within the Americas. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, the OAS is ...

(OAS), and the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP).

References

External links

*{{official website, http://www.latindex.org Bibliographic databases and indexes Latin American studies Caribbean studies