Pakistan Digital Library Project Interview

BISO news interviewed Kamran Naim, Project Coordinator at the Pakistan Higher Education Commission (HEC), during a recent visit to Washington, DC. Kamran is responsible for managing the Pakistan Digital Library Project and worked directly with BISO to negotiate discounted access to on-line journals and databases from American scientific societies for universities in Pakistan. How did the Pakistan Digital Library Project get started? In 2003 Pakistan signed a bilateral Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement with the United States through which both sides allocated funds to promote S&T capacity building projects through collaboration with U.S. agencies. In response to this opportunity, the Pakistan Higher Education Commission (HEC) interviewed members of the scientific research sector in Pakistan to determine the information needs of the scientific community. Based on this we decided which on-line scientific journals and databases were needed to enhance the scientific capacity of the science and engineering sectors. From there we proposed the Pakistan Digital Library project to the U.S. Department of State and were awarded the largest grant of the bilateral agreement to implement the project. Why did you decide to work with the National Academies? Through my affiliation with INASP [International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications] I learned that BISO already had established relationships with numerous scientific societies in the United States. Partnering with the National Academies was crucial to facilitating relationships which we were having difficulty to forge independently. INASP put me in touch with BISO Director, Wendy White and we formed a partnership to negotiate the agreements. How did you find the response from the publishers? All participating publishers were extremely supportive of the program and were able to offer their content at deep discounts. The preferential pricing accurately reflects the research capacity in Pakistan and most importantly is financially sustainable for the HEC to maintain for future years of subscription. We would like to express our gratitude to the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society, the American Institute for Physics, the American Association of Physics Teachers, the Optical Society of America, the American Society for Microbiology, the American Society for Civil Engineering, the American Society for Mechanical Engineering, the American Society for Agricultural Engineers, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science for their generous support. What discounts were offered? Typically discounts ranged from 90-98% of the list prices of the journals. What has been the response from the Pakistan scientific community? The response has been overwhelmingly positive. The project began in 2005 and in the first six months of the project we saw over 100,000 downloads. Prior to the project, HEC found in a survey of 44 public-sector universities that only 15 had subscriptions to CD-ROM databases and only four had access to online journal databases. Now we are in the process of partnering with publishers to educate end users on the systems and bring awareness of available resources so we expect the numbers to greatly increase. What’s next? Following the Pakistan Digital Library Project, I was asked to work with BISO and the Department of State to help with an initiative in Iraq. Similarly, the Iraqi Virtual Science Library Program will assist Iraq in building upon its scientific capacity through access to on-line journals and databases. We hope to have that in place in 2006.