DOI: 10.1111/hir.12056
Measuring HINARI use in Nigeria through a citation analysis of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice Ebele N. Anyaoku* & Chinwe V. Anunobi† *Medical Library, College of Health Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nnewi Campus, Anambra, Nigeria, and †Digital Library, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra, Nigeria
Abstract Background: HINARI is one of the four programmes of Research4Life managed by the World Health Organization in partnership with Yale University Library. HINARI provides online access to the world’s health-related scientific literature free or at very low cost to researchers in developing countries. The research examined the use of HINARI through a 5-year (2007–2011) citation analysis of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice. Method: The study was a citation analysis of 5 years of published volumes of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice. The analysis was carried out using issues ranging from volume 10 (2007) to 14 (2011). The use of HINARI was determined by comparing the total journal titles and articles cited from HINARI with non-HINARI journals in the five volumes of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice (NJCP). Results: Results show that only 42.8% of the journal titles cited are available in HINARI. On the contrary, in terms of total articles cited from the journals, HINARI had a higher citation of 56.1% with a greater citation frequency of individual titles. Conclusion: The higher article citations and repeated use of individual titles available in HINARI suggest that health researchers in Nigeria are using the HINARI resource to a measurable extent. Keywords: access to information; Africa, West; citation analysis; open access (OA)
Key Messages
• • • •
Free access initiatives may be proving beneficial to health researchers in developing countries. Librarians should ensure they are involved in inculcating skills needed to effectively retrieve information from these resources. Resources such as HINARI are designed to empower librarians in their mission of providing access to high-quality information. Librarians need to exploit these resources to the maximum benefits of their users. Librarians should be innovative in creating awareness, marketing and publicising HINARI and other donor-supported resources to ensure that they are used maximally. Librarians can prove the value of open or free access initiatives by undertaking impact surveys and citation analysis that focus on the use of these resources.
Background Scholarly journals are the major tools for dissemination of clinical research findings and
Correspondence: Ebele N. Anyaoku, Medical Library, College of Health Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, P. M. B. 5001 Nnewi, Anambra State, Nigeria. E-mail: [email protected]
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sharing of knowledge. They are indispensible resources required by health practitioners to keep abreast of developments in their areas of practice. Access to research information as documented in journal literature has been identified as vital for effective healthcare delivery, research, decisionmaking and administration activities for health professionals.1
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Before 2001, the information environment of many developing countries was characterised by low access to research information and literature. The serials crisis of the period occasioned by exponential growth in the literature and reduced budgetary allocation for acquisition of peerreviewed journals led to the inability of health professionals to have access to research literature to support clinical practices and research.2 The greatest challenge, however, was in having access to scholarly journals published in developed countries. They were not just unavailable, but expensive to obtain by both institutions and individual researchers. By 2000, it was clear to ‘senior managers at the World Health Organization (WHO) that doctors, academics and students of the world’s poorest countries were suffering from lack of access to up-to-date information on biomedicine hampering both the delivery of health care and essential research into medicine and diseases.3’ Various attempts were made to bridge this gap between the information-rich and information-poor countries of the world4 using information and communication technologies (ICTs). Such efforts included free MEDLINE on the Internet for the public and multi-lateral initiative on Malaria Communication Network both in 1998. Access to Research in Health Programme (HINARI) was launched in January 2002. HINARI access to research in health programme HINARI is one of the Research4Life programmes. Research4Life is a public–private partnership of World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Yale and Cornell Universities, more than 190 science publishers facilitated by the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers and several technical partners including Microsoft. The partnership’s goal is to reduce the knowledge gap between industrialised countries and developing countries by providing affordable access to critical scientific research.5,6 Other programmes under the umbrella of Research4Life are AGORA, OARE ARDI. These programmes were developed to provide access to research informa-
tion for students and professionals in developing countries in the fields of medicine, agriculture, environment and related social sciences. HINARI is managed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with Yale University Library.5 HINARI provides online access to the world’s health-related scientific literature free or at very low cost to researchers in developing countries. It was launched in 2002 with 1500 journals from six major scientific and medical publishers. Currently, the programme has over 11 400 journals, 18 500 e-books, covering the full spectrum of medicine, health care and related social sciences. Also available in HINARI are over 70 valuable medical information databases and reference resources such as CINAHL, PubMed and systematic reviews – Cochrane library, clinical evidence and others. By providing access to these various information resources, HINARI can truly be called a multi-database research resource. It is important to note that a large portion of the collections in HINARI are subscription-based publications, which were out of reach for most libraries and researchers in developing countries. The focus of HINARI was to provide access to peer-reviewed information resources which will help developing countries improve skills, carry out quality research and by extension save lives.7 It was expected to impact greatly on health care research and delivery.8 The fourfold mission of HINARI includes connectivity (information access and use through ICT), content (providing timely relevant and high-quality information), capacity building (developing skills in ICT management and use) and policy.9 There are several acclamations of the benefits and impact of HINARI to the intended research community. The multi-database was acclaimed as the single most important information resource for health practitioners in the developing world and the most successful initiative that bridged the gap between the information rich and the poor.7,10 It was also presented as making great impact on publication access by institutions and providing scientists and health professionals with sharp cutting edge research findings.2 Using statistics to support the impact claim, Aronson11 noted that in the first 6 month of 2003, users of HINARI downloaded 34 680 articles from 214 journals offered by
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Blackwell publishing. This increased to 73,734 after 6 months. Ross and Buckles12 using citation data evaluated whether HINARI journals have had greater use in eligible American countries since the initiation of the programme. There was an average annual increase in frequency of citations to the HINARI journals. This increase was greater after the programme’s initiation for only two sub regions, Central America and Caribbean America. The average increase was not recorded in South American. A 9-year research impact analysis of HINARI and other sister programmes AGORA and OARE was also undertaken by Resaerch4Life. Impact outcome on the use of the resources by countries that participate in the programme was reported as increase in authorship and increased use of HINARI journals compared with non-HINARI journals. There was also 194% or 6.4-fold increase in articles published in peer-reviewed journals in these countries from 2002 to 2008 the years preceding the onset of the programmes.13 Casting doubts on Research4Life claims, Davis and Walter14 declared that the results and impact analysis from Research4Life13 were unsupported by requisite evidence. According to the authors, the press release did not provide information on the methods used to reach the conclusion. Equally, potentially important confounding factors, such as country wealth, national expenditures on research and development, number of active scientists and emergence of research centres in high-impact fields such as medicine, or improvements in library and information technology infrastructures were not controlled. Also, no data were provided on the number of articles published in each country, because even modest increases in article publication in countries with historically low output can result in high-percentage increases. Despite the fact that HINARI has been available for 10 years, and over ninety Nigerian institutions subscribe to the programme, no in-depth study has been carried out to determine how health researchers in Nigeria are using this resource for health research. There is therefore need for an impact assessment of the benefit of HINARI to the intended users. One way of carrying out impact assessment of information resources is through
citation analysis. Citation analysis is defined as a subfield of informetrics where patterns and frequencies of citations, given as well as received, are analysed. Such an analysis is performed on the level of authors, journals, scientific disciplines and any other useful unit or level. Citation analysis focusing on final bibliographies provides measures of utility of journals and different types of information sources by researchers.15–17 This study examined HINARI use through a citation analysis of a Nigerian medical journal of interest: the Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice. The aim was to establish whether the free available literature is being utilised as envisioned by the donors. Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice (NJCP) is the official publication of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria. NJCP was established in 1997 as a general medical journal with the purpose of promoting clinical and academic excellence in medicine, dentistry and allied sciences. From inception to 2006, NJCP was a biannual publication. In 2007, it was increased to a quarterly publication. According to the Thomson Reuters Journal 2011 Citation Reports, it has the highest impact factor among biomedical journals published in Nigeria. Hence, it is considered adequate for this research. Using references in this journal, citation analysis of articles published in the journal was started as a means of determining HINARI use by Nigerian medical and dental practitioners. This citation analysis of NJCP was performed by comparing the citations to journals available in HINARI with those not available in HINARI. Such comparative method for assessing journal use has been suggested as being effective in determining journal use.18 Objectives The purpose of the citation analysis was to determine the use of HINARI resource by Nigerian medical and dental professionals. It is hoped that the citation analysis will give an overview of how researchers in this field are benefiting from this initiative that is organised to improve research and health care in developing countries.
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Measuring HINARI use in Nigeria, Ebele N. Anyaoku & Chinwe V. Anunobi
The following research questions guided the study: 1 How many of the journals cited in NJCP are available in HINARI? 2 How does article citations from HINARI journals compare with non-HINARI journals 3 How does journal citations’ frequency in HINARI compare with non-HINARI journals? 4 Which subjects are cited most from HINARI? 5 Which journal titles are cited most from HINARI and non-HINARI? Methods
Table 1 Research reports published per volume Year 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 G/Total
Vol. 10 11 12 13 14
Five-year citation analysis of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice A total of 7816 journal articles were cited from 1775 journal titles in the 20 issues of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice published from 2007 to 2011. Comparative presentation of the journal title count and article count from the HINARI and non-HINARI sets of journals is presented in Fig. 1. Results obtained from the analysis show that in terms of journal title count, 759 (42.8%) journals of the 1775 journals cited in the 5 years are available in HINARI. 1016 (57.2%) journals were not available in HINARI. This shows that non-HINARI journals were cited more, compared with HINARI journals. On the contrary, article count shows a reversed result. 4384 articles representing 56.1% of the 7816 article citations in the five volumes were cited from HINARI journals. Yearly citation analysis of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice An analysis of yearly title count of journals cited from NJCP shows that there was a consistent increase in number of journals cited in the 5 years under review. Citation increased from 505 journal titles in 2007 to 854 journal titles in 2011 (Fig. 2). In line with results presented in Fig. 1, total yearly journal citations were consistently higher for non12 000 10 000
No. of citaons
The study was a citation analysis of 5 years of published volumes of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice. Only journal citations were considered. Books, dissertations, monographs and reports were not included in the citation analysis. The analysis was carried out using issues ranging from volume 10 of 2007 to volume 14 of 2011. A total of 20 issues of the journal containing 482 (Table 1) articles had their citations analysed. A yearly database of each volume was developed using the Microsoft Excel Software. The database was built by creating records of individual citation with focus on journal title, publisher, the year, subject and availability in ‘HINARI Complete List of Journals’. To obtain the later information, a search of each title on the reference was carried out on the HINARI list. A category of ‘yes’ was assigned to an available title while ‘No’ was assigned to an unavailable title. A 5-year comprehensive database was thereafter developed by merging the results of the individual years. Data contained in the developed database of the citations were analysed and presented using percentages, tables and graphs.
Results
Journal title count
8000 6000
7816
4000
Total 75 88 105 104 110 482
Article count
4384
3432
759
1016
Hinari
Non-Hinari
2000 0
1775 Total citation
Figure 1 Five-year citation analysis of HINARI and nonHINARI journals in Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice (NJCP).
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Citation frequency of HINARI and non-HINARI journals The citation frequency of journals cited in HINARI and non-HINARI list is presented in Table 2. As shown in the table, a higher percentage (75.5%) of non-HINARI journals was cited once or twice while for HINARI journals, it was 58.7%. On the other hand, a higher percentage (12.2%) of HINARI journals was cited from ten times to over hundred times compared with nonHINARI journals (5.7%).
56.0% 54.0%
53.5% 51.5%
50.9%
50.4% 49.6%
49.1%
48.5%
48.0%
51.1% 48.9%
46.5%
46.0% 44.0% 42.0%
Hinari
58.0%
Non Hinari
57.7%
56.0%
56.2%
56.5%
56.4%
54.0%
54.0%
52.0% 50.0% 48.0% 46.0%
46.0%
44.0% 42.3%
42.0% 40.0%
43.8%
2007
2008
43.6%
43.5%
2009 Year of citaon
2010
2011
Figure 3 Percentage yearly article count from cited journals* in HINARI list and non-HINARI list. *Yearly article count from cited journals in NJCP: 2007 = 1244, 2008 = 1294, 2009 = 1656, 2010 = 1599, 2011 = 2023.
Table 2 Citation frequency of HINARI and non-HINARI journals
HINARI journals
Non-HINARI journals
N = 759
N = 1016
No. of times cited
Title count
% of total citation
Title count
% of Total citation
1 2 3 4 5–9 10–50 51–100 100≥
301 145 77 45 99 81 8 3
39.7 19.1 10.1 5.9 13.0 10.7 1.1 0.4
599 168 78 42 71 49 6 3
59.0 16.5 7.7 4.1 7.0 4.8 0.6 0.3
Subjects of cited journals from HINARI Hinari Non-Hinari
52.0% 50.0%
60.0%
% Arcle citaon count
HINARI journals. Non-HINARI journal titles were consistently cited over 50% of the total journal citation. 2008 recorded the highest citation rate over HINARI journals with 53.5%. In contrast to the results obtained in the yearly journal title count, analysis of yearly article count from cited journals shows a reversal of the result trend. In this case, total articles cited from HINARI journals were consistently higher than those cited from non-HINARI journals. The percentage distribution is shown in Fig. 3. For the 5 years under study, over 50% of the total articles cited in NJCP were from HINARI. 2006 recorded the highest citation rate over non-HINARI with 57.7%, and 2010 recorded the lowest citation rate with 54%. The result also shows that the articles citation count for HINARI journals revolved around 56%. Hence, there is no remarkable change in the citation count for the 5 years studied.
% Journal arƟcle cited
152
2007
2008
2009 Year of citaƟon
2010
2011
Figure 2 Percentage yearly distribution of cited journals* from HINARI list and non-HINARI list. *Yearly citation to journals in NJCP: 2007 = 505, 2008 = 514, 2009 = 628, 2010 =636, 2011 = 854.
Journal subject is an access point through which users can locate information in HINARI. The journal collections on the HINARI portal were classified under 62 subjects. Journals cited in NJCP were found in 41 subjects. Table 3 shows that 3592 articles were accessed from 15 subjects of the 41 subjects. This represents 81.9% of the total article citation from HINARI. The remaining 26 subjects were cited 792 times (18.1%). General medicine, Gynaecology and obstetrics, surgery, internal medicine and paediatrics were the top five subjects cited accruing 2377 citations, which represents 54.2% of the total articles cited from HINARI.
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Measuring HINARI use in Nigeria, Ebele N. Anyaoku & Chinwe V. Anunobi
Twenty most cited journals from HINARI and non-HINARI in NJCP
Table 3 Fifteen most cited subjects of journals from HINARI
S/N
Subject
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Medicine (General) Gynecology/Obstetrics Surgery Internal Medicine Pediatrics Ophthalmology Urology Endocrinology and Metabolism Pathology Oncology Tropical Medicine Gastroenterology Cardiology Anesthesia Public Health Total
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Journal title count
Total article count
% of Total N = 4384
78 44 59 69 41 24 13 18
800 681 321 317 258 195 173 129
18.3 15.5 7.3 7.2 5.9 4.5 4.0 2.9
31 34 9 18 17 10 26 491
127 123 101 99 95 94 79 3592
2.9 2.8 2.3 2.3 2.1 2.1 1.8 81.9
Table 4 shows twenty most cited journals from HINARI and non-HINARI. The twenty most cited journals from HINARI had their articles cited 1401 times. This represents 31.96% of the 4384 articles cited from HINARI journal. Twenty most cited journals from non-HINARI journals had their articles cited 1156 times. This represents 33.7% of the 3432 articles cited from non-HINARI journals. The twenty most cited HINARI journals had 245 article citations more than those of non-HINARI journals. Despite higher article citation rate recorded for HINARI journals, West African Journal of Medicine, a non-HINARI journal cited 198 times, is the highest cited journal in NJCP in the five volumes analysed. Lancet is the most cited journal in the HINARI set accruing 173 citations. Nineteen of the twenty most cited journals from HINARI are
Table 4 Twenty most cited journals from HINARI and non-HINARI
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
HINARI journals
Non-HINARI journals
N = 4384
N = 3432
Journal title
Total article citation
Lancet British Medical Journal. (BMJ) New England Journal of Medicine International Journal of Gynaecology & Obstetrics Am Journal Obstetrics Gynaecology Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology African Journal of Reproduction Health Obstetrics and Gynaecology Journal of Urology Pediatrics Bulletin of World Health Organization Diabetic Care British Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology Fertility & Sterility British Journal of Surgery British Journal of Urology International Annals of Internal Medicine Contraception British Journal of Ophthalmology Total
173 128 119 89 87 82 77 73 70 59 54 52 49 49 45 40 40 39 38 38 1401
Journal title West African Journal of Medicine Tropical Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology East African Medical Journal African Journal of Medicine & Medical Sciences Nigerian Journal of Medicine Nigerian Journal of Pediatrics Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice Nigerian Medical Practitioner Tropical Doctor Nigerian Medical Journal Nigerian Postgraduate Medical Journal Tropical & Geographic Medicine Central Africa Journal of Medicine Nigerian Journal of Ophthalmology Journal of Tropical Pediatrics South African Medical Journal Journal of Trauma American Journal of Epidemiology Journal of National Medical Association Radiology
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Total article citation 198 120 116 78 64 58 55 52 52 44 43 41 37 33 31 31 29 28 23 23 1156
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foreign-based publications. Only African Journal of Reproductive Health is a local-based journal. Comparatively, nine of the twenty most cited journals from non-HINARI journals are published in Nigeria, three are regional journals and eight are foreignbased journals. Discussion HINARI was conceived and set up by partners of Research4life to provide timely, relevant and highquality information with the focus of helping developing countries to improve health research and develop skills.5 The main purpose of the study was to measure HINARI use in Nigeria through a citation analysis of a leading Nigerian biomedical journal; Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice (NJCP). The use of HINARI was measured by comparing journal citations in NJCP available in HINARI with non-HINARI journals. The result of the citation analysis shows that a total of 7816 journal articles were cited from 1775 journal titles in the five volumes of NJCP analysed. Breakdown of this figure indicates a two-dimension result. There is a higher citation to non-HINARI journals which accrued 57.2% of the 1775 journal titles cited in NJCP in the 5 years under review. On the contrary, when considered in terms of total articles cited from each group of journals, HINARI journals have a greater citation of 56.1% compared with non-HINARI journals. The findings that show higher article citation from HINARI journals compared with nonHINARI journals and the repeated use of the titles available in HINARI suggest a probability that health researchers in Nigeria are using the resource to a measurable extent. These findings tend to corroborate the 9-year impact analysis by Research4Life that found increased use of HINARI journals compared with non-HINARI journals.13 However, any inference or conclusion to be made from the results obtained in the present study should be considered with the view of the limitation associated with citation analysis of this nature. It has been pointed out that the most common of limitations of unobtrusive methods of counting article citation is interpretive. A citation does not show how a resource was obtained. This is because an author may cite from the abstract of an
article or copy a cited work by another author.12 Equally, many online journals have print editions especially for older years. Citation analysis has no method of verifying format of access leading to the probability of wrong classifications. This might be quite applicable in the present research work. A good percentage of titles available in HINARI is open access on the Internet.19 For instance, four of the twenty most cited journals from HINARI, namely Lancet, BMJ, African Journal of Reproduction Health and Bulletin of World Health Organization are open-access journals. Five others are on delayed open access from six to twelve months after date of publication. They are New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Diabetic Care, British Journal of Urology International and Annals of Internal Medicine. Equally, many of the journals have both print and non-print editions. Considering these scenarios, there is no method of verifying how and in what format the journals were accessed in the analysis. Despite this limitation, it is pertinent to note that some of the current open-access journals may not have been open access as at the time the researches that were analysed in this report were carried out. It is also important to note that these titles found useful in the research activities of these Nigerian health professionals are available in HINARI and that the probable free availability of these journals through HINARI lends them to repeated use by different authors in diverse locations of the country within the same time frame. As has been noted, over ninety institutions are registered with HINARI in Nigeria. The findings of the citation analysis of NJCP therefore suggest that HINARI to some extent may be contributing to the vision of its initiator and donors to improve research and healthcare in developing countries. Conclusions Findings from citation analysis of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice show that researchers are repeatedly citing journal titles available in HINARI at a higher rate than non-HINARI journals titles. The repeated citations of many of the HINARI titles suggest that they may be used because of their free availability. Although citation analysis as a tool to determine use of information resources
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does not reveal how these resources are obtained, it is pertinent to observe that these titles accessed and considered relevant to the research process of these health professionals are available in HINARI. Based on this premise, it can be concluded that researchers in Nigeria are using the HINARI resource to a measurable extent. This attests to the value and positive impact of this initiative from World Health Organization in partnership with participating publishers that was begun eleven years ago to improve health research and save lives in emerging economies. It also underscores the need for its continual availability and widespread publicising and marketing by information professionals in the country so that every health professional will be giving the opportunity to improve his knowledge and skills as well as carry out effective research. Conflict of interest and source of funding The research was not funded by any organization or institution. References 1 Musoke, M. G. N. Information and its value to health workers in rural Uganda: a qualitative perspective. Health Librararies Review 2000, 17, 194–202. 2 Voronin, Y., Mvrahmetvov, A. & Bernstein, A. Access to scientific publication: The scientists perspective. Plos One 2011, 6, e27868. Accessible at: http://www.plosone.org/ article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0027868. 3 Aronson, B. & Long, M. Forward: making a difference. Research 4life.2012. Accessible at: www.research4life.org 4 Goulding, A. Information poverty or overload? Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 2001, 33, 109–111. 5 Research4life. Accessible at: www.who.int/hinari/promotional_materials/2013_foldable_english.pdf 6 WIPO’s ARDI Programme Joins Research4LifeAccessible at: www.wipo.int/ardi/en/research4life.html 7 Kahkireddi, S. V. HINARI: bridging the global information divider. British Medical Journal 2004, 328, 1190–1193. 8 Royall, J. & Lyon, B. Sea – change or change challenge? Health Information access in developing countries: The US National Library of medicine experience. African Health Sciences 2011, 11, 457–463.
9 Kuruvilla, S., Dzenowagis, J., Pleasant, A., Dwivedi, R., Murthy, N. & Samuel, R. & Schooltz, M. Digital bridges need concrete foundations: lessons from the Health InterNetwork India. British Medical Journal 2004, 328, 1193–1196. 10 Eyers, J. A closer look at Hinari. What it is, what it offers, and how to access it. Africa Health 2010. Accessible at: http:// www.africa-health.com/articles/may_2010/Library_14.pdf 11 Aronson, B. Improving online access to medical information for low-income countries. New England Journal of Medicine 2004, 350, 966–968. Accessible at: http://content.nejm.org/ cgi/content/full/350/10/966. 12 Ross, V. T. & Buckles, C. The Health Internetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) in eligible American countries: benefits, challenges and relationship to Internet use. First Monday 2011, 16, Accessible at: http://firstmonday. org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/ 3076/30 13 Parker, K. Outcomes from a free access partnership: HINARI Impact after Nine Years. World Library And Information Congress: 76th IFLA General Conference And Assembly 10-15 August 2010, Gothenburg, Sweden. Accessible at: http://conference.ifla.org/past/ifla76/100-parker-en. pdf 14 Davis, P. D. & Walters, W. H. The impact of free access to the scientific literature: a review of recent research. Journal of the Medical Library Association 2011, 99, 208–217. Accessible at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC3133904/ 15 Liang, L. & Rousseau, R. Reference analysis: a view in the mirror of citation analysis. Geometrics and Information Science of Wuhan University, 2010, 35, 6–9. Accessible at: http://users.telenet.be/ronald.rousseau/Wuhan_Conference_ 2010.pdf 16 Reinsfelder, T. L. Citation analysis as a tool to measure the impact of individual research consultations. College & Research Libraries 2012, 73, 263–277. 17 Ramesh, L. S. R. C. V. & Nagaraju, A. V. S. S. Citation analysis of the Indian Journal of Information. Library and Society. Indian Journal of Information, Library & Society, 2000, 4, 171–179. 18 Harnad, S. & Brody, T. Comparing the impact of open access (OA) vs. non-OA articles in the same journals. D-Lib Magazine, 2004, 10. Accessible at: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/ june04/harnad/06harnad.html 19 Villafuerte-Galvez, J., Curioso, W. H. & Gayos, O. Biomedical journals and global poverty: is HINARI a Step Backwards? PLoS Medicine, 2007, 4, 220. Accessible at: http:// www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed Received 22 June 2013; Accepted 12 December 2013
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Measuring HINARI use in Nigeria through a citation analysis of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice Ebele N. Anyaoku* & Chinwe V. Anunobi† *Medical Library, College of Health Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nnewi Campus, Anambra, Nigeria, and †Digital Library, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra, Nigeria
Abstract Background: HINARI is one of the four programmes of Research4Life managed by the World Health Organization in partnership with Yale University Library. HINARI provides online access to the world’s health-related scientific literature free or at very low cost to researchers in developing countries. The research examined the use of HINARI through a 5-year (2007–2011) citation analysis of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice. Method: The study was a citation analysis of 5 years of published volumes of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice. The analysis was carried out using issues ranging from volume 10 (2007) to 14 (2011). The use of HINARI was determined by comparing the total journal titles and articles cited from HINARI with non-HINARI journals in the five volumes of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice (NJCP). Results: Results show that only 42.8% of the journal titles cited are available in HINARI. On the contrary, in terms of total articles cited from the journals, HINARI had a higher citation of 56.1% with a greater citation frequency of individual titles. Conclusion: The higher article citations and repeated use of individual titles available in HINARI suggest that health researchers in Nigeria are using the HINARI resource to a measurable extent. Keywords: access to information; Africa, West; citation analysis; open access (OA)
Key Messages
• • • •
Free access initiatives may be proving beneficial to health researchers in developing countries. Librarians should ensure they are involved in inculcating skills needed to effectively retrieve information from these resources. Resources such as HINARI are designed to empower librarians in their mission of providing access to high-quality information. Librarians need to exploit these resources to the maximum benefits of their users. Librarians should be innovative in creating awareness, marketing and publicising HINARI and other donor-supported resources to ensure that they are used maximally. Librarians can prove the value of open or free access initiatives by undertaking impact surveys and citation analysis that focus on the use of these resources.
Background Scholarly journals are the major tools for dissemination of clinical research findings and
Correspondence: Ebele N. Anyaoku, Medical Library, College of Health Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, P. M. B. 5001 Nnewi, Anambra State, Nigeria. E-mail: [email protected]
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sharing of knowledge. They are indispensible resources required by health practitioners to keep abreast of developments in their areas of practice. Access to research information as documented in journal literature has been identified as vital for effective healthcare delivery, research, decisionmaking and administration activities for health professionals.1
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Before 2001, the information environment of many developing countries was characterised by low access to research information and literature. The serials crisis of the period occasioned by exponential growth in the literature and reduced budgetary allocation for acquisition of peerreviewed journals led to the inability of health professionals to have access to research literature to support clinical practices and research.2 The greatest challenge, however, was in having access to scholarly journals published in developed countries. They were not just unavailable, but expensive to obtain by both institutions and individual researchers. By 2000, it was clear to ‘senior managers at the World Health Organization (WHO) that doctors, academics and students of the world’s poorest countries were suffering from lack of access to up-to-date information on biomedicine hampering both the delivery of health care and essential research into medicine and diseases.3’ Various attempts were made to bridge this gap between the information-rich and information-poor countries of the world4 using information and communication technologies (ICTs). Such efforts included free MEDLINE on the Internet for the public and multi-lateral initiative on Malaria Communication Network both in 1998. Access to Research in Health Programme (HINARI) was launched in January 2002. HINARI access to research in health programme HINARI is one of the Research4Life programmes. Research4Life is a public–private partnership of World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Yale and Cornell Universities, more than 190 science publishers facilitated by the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers and several technical partners including Microsoft. The partnership’s goal is to reduce the knowledge gap between industrialised countries and developing countries by providing affordable access to critical scientific research.5,6 Other programmes under the umbrella of Research4Life are AGORA, OARE ARDI. These programmes were developed to provide access to research informa-
tion for students and professionals in developing countries in the fields of medicine, agriculture, environment and related social sciences. HINARI is managed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with Yale University Library.5 HINARI provides online access to the world’s health-related scientific literature free or at very low cost to researchers in developing countries. It was launched in 2002 with 1500 journals from six major scientific and medical publishers. Currently, the programme has over 11 400 journals, 18 500 e-books, covering the full spectrum of medicine, health care and related social sciences. Also available in HINARI are over 70 valuable medical information databases and reference resources such as CINAHL, PubMed and systematic reviews – Cochrane library, clinical evidence and others. By providing access to these various information resources, HINARI can truly be called a multi-database research resource. It is important to note that a large portion of the collections in HINARI are subscription-based publications, which were out of reach for most libraries and researchers in developing countries. The focus of HINARI was to provide access to peer-reviewed information resources which will help developing countries improve skills, carry out quality research and by extension save lives.7 It was expected to impact greatly on health care research and delivery.8 The fourfold mission of HINARI includes connectivity (information access and use through ICT), content (providing timely relevant and high-quality information), capacity building (developing skills in ICT management and use) and policy.9 There are several acclamations of the benefits and impact of HINARI to the intended research community. The multi-database was acclaimed as the single most important information resource for health practitioners in the developing world and the most successful initiative that bridged the gap between the information rich and the poor.7,10 It was also presented as making great impact on publication access by institutions and providing scientists and health professionals with sharp cutting edge research findings.2 Using statistics to support the impact claim, Aronson11 noted that in the first 6 month of 2003, users of HINARI downloaded 34 680 articles from 214 journals offered by
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Blackwell publishing. This increased to 73,734 after 6 months. Ross and Buckles12 using citation data evaluated whether HINARI journals have had greater use in eligible American countries since the initiation of the programme. There was an average annual increase in frequency of citations to the HINARI journals. This increase was greater after the programme’s initiation for only two sub regions, Central America and Caribbean America. The average increase was not recorded in South American. A 9-year research impact analysis of HINARI and other sister programmes AGORA and OARE was also undertaken by Resaerch4Life. Impact outcome on the use of the resources by countries that participate in the programme was reported as increase in authorship and increased use of HINARI journals compared with non-HINARI journals. There was also 194% or 6.4-fold increase in articles published in peer-reviewed journals in these countries from 2002 to 2008 the years preceding the onset of the programmes.13 Casting doubts on Research4Life claims, Davis and Walter14 declared that the results and impact analysis from Research4Life13 were unsupported by requisite evidence. According to the authors, the press release did not provide information on the methods used to reach the conclusion. Equally, potentially important confounding factors, such as country wealth, national expenditures on research and development, number of active scientists and emergence of research centres in high-impact fields such as medicine, or improvements in library and information technology infrastructures were not controlled. Also, no data were provided on the number of articles published in each country, because even modest increases in article publication in countries with historically low output can result in high-percentage increases. Despite the fact that HINARI has been available for 10 years, and over ninety Nigerian institutions subscribe to the programme, no in-depth study has been carried out to determine how health researchers in Nigeria are using this resource for health research. There is therefore need for an impact assessment of the benefit of HINARI to the intended users. One way of carrying out impact assessment of information resources is through
citation analysis. Citation analysis is defined as a subfield of informetrics where patterns and frequencies of citations, given as well as received, are analysed. Such an analysis is performed on the level of authors, journals, scientific disciplines and any other useful unit or level. Citation analysis focusing on final bibliographies provides measures of utility of journals and different types of information sources by researchers.15–17 This study examined HINARI use through a citation analysis of a Nigerian medical journal of interest: the Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice. The aim was to establish whether the free available literature is being utilised as envisioned by the donors. Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice (NJCP) is the official publication of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria. NJCP was established in 1997 as a general medical journal with the purpose of promoting clinical and academic excellence in medicine, dentistry and allied sciences. From inception to 2006, NJCP was a biannual publication. In 2007, it was increased to a quarterly publication. According to the Thomson Reuters Journal 2011 Citation Reports, it has the highest impact factor among biomedical journals published in Nigeria. Hence, it is considered adequate for this research. Using references in this journal, citation analysis of articles published in the journal was started as a means of determining HINARI use by Nigerian medical and dental practitioners. This citation analysis of NJCP was performed by comparing the citations to journals available in HINARI with those not available in HINARI. Such comparative method for assessing journal use has been suggested as being effective in determining journal use.18 Objectives The purpose of the citation analysis was to determine the use of HINARI resource by Nigerian medical and dental professionals. It is hoped that the citation analysis will give an overview of how researchers in this field are benefiting from this initiative that is organised to improve research and health care in developing countries.
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Measuring HINARI use in Nigeria, Ebele N. Anyaoku & Chinwe V. Anunobi
The following research questions guided the study: 1 How many of the journals cited in NJCP are available in HINARI? 2 How does article citations from HINARI journals compare with non-HINARI journals 3 How does journal citations’ frequency in HINARI compare with non-HINARI journals? 4 Which subjects are cited most from HINARI? 5 Which journal titles are cited most from HINARI and non-HINARI? Methods
Table 1 Research reports published per volume Year 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 G/Total
Vol. 10 11 12 13 14
Five-year citation analysis of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice A total of 7816 journal articles were cited from 1775 journal titles in the 20 issues of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice published from 2007 to 2011. Comparative presentation of the journal title count and article count from the HINARI and non-HINARI sets of journals is presented in Fig. 1. Results obtained from the analysis show that in terms of journal title count, 759 (42.8%) journals of the 1775 journals cited in the 5 years are available in HINARI. 1016 (57.2%) journals were not available in HINARI. This shows that non-HINARI journals were cited more, compared with HINARI journals. On the contrary, article count shows a reversed result. 4384 articles representing 56.1% of the 7816 article citations in the five volumes were cited from HINARI journals. Yearly citation analysis of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice An analysis of yearly title count of journals cited from NJCP shows that there was a consistent increase in number of journals cited in the 5 years under review. Citation increased from 505 journal titles in 2007 to 854 journal titles in 2011 (Fig. 2). In line with results presented in Fig. 1, total yearly journal citations were consistently higher for non12 000 10 000
No. of citaons
The study was a citation analysis of 5 years of published volumes of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice. Only journal citations were considered. Books, dissertations, monographs and reports were not included in the citation analysis. The analysis was carried out using issues ranging from volume 10 of 2007 to volume 14 of 2011. A total of 20 issues of the journal containing 482 (Table 1) articles had their citations analysed. A yearly database of each volume was developed using the Microsoft Excel Software. The database was built by creating records of individual citation with focus on journal title, publisher, the year, subject and availability in ‘HINARI Complete List of Journals’. To obtain the later information, a search of each title on the reference was carried out on the HINARI list. A category of ‘yes’ was assigned to an available title while ‘No’ was assigned to an unavailable title. A 5-year comprehensive database was thereafter developed by merging the results of the individual years. Data contained in the developed database of the citations were analysed and presented using percentages, tables and graphs.
Results
Journal title count
8000 6000
7816
4000
Total 75 88 105 104 110 482
Article count
4384
3432
759
1016
Hinari
Non-Hinari
2000 0
1775 Total citation
Figure 1 Five-year citation analysis of HINARI and nonHINARI journals in Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice (NJCP).
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Citation frequency of HINARI and non-HINARI journals The citation frequency of journals cited in HINARI and non-HINARI list is presented in Table 2. As shown in the table, a higher percentage (75.5%) of non-HINARI journals was cited once or twice while for HINARI journals, it was 58.7%. On the other hand, a higher percentage (12.2%) of HINARI journals was cited from ten times to over hundred times compared with nonHINARI journals (5.7%).
56.0% 54.0%
53.5% 51.5%
50.9%
50.4% 49.6%
49.1%
48.5%
48.0%
51.1% 48.9%
46.5%
46.0% 44.0% 42.0%
Hinari
58.0%
Non Hinari
57.7%
56.0%
56.2%
56.5%
56.4%
54.0%
54.0%
52.0% 50.0% 48.0% 46.0%
46.0%
44.0% 42.3%
42.0% 40.0%
43.8%
2007
2008
43.6%
43.5%
2009 Year of citaon
2010
2011
Figure 3 Percentage yearly article count from cited journals* in HINARI list and non-HINARI list. *Yearly article count from cited journals in NJCP: 2007 = 1244, 2008 = 1294, 2009 = 1656, 2010 = 1599, 2011 = 2023.
Table 2 Citation frequency of HINARI and non-HINARI journals
HINARI journals
Non-HINARI journals
N = 759
N = 1016
No. of times cited
Title count
% of total citation
Title count
% of Total citation
1 2 3 4 5–9 10–50 51–100 100≥
301 145 77 45 99 81 8 3
39.7 19.1 10.1 5.9 13.0 10.7 1.1 0.4
599 168 78 42 71 49 6 3
59.0 16.5 7.7 4.1 7.0 4.8 0.6 0.3
Subjects of cited journals from HINARI Hinari Non-Hinari
52.0% 50.0%
60.0%
% Arcle citaon count
HINARI journals. Non-HINARI journal titles were consistently cited over 50% of the total journal citation. 2008 recorded the highest citation rate over HINARI journals with 53.5%. In contrast to the results obtained in the yearly journal title count, analysis of yearly article count from cited journals shows a reversal of the result trend. In this case, total articles cited from HINARI journals were consistently higher than those cited from non-HINARI journals. The percentage distribution is shown in Fig. 3. For the 5 years under study, over 50% of the total articles cited in NJCP were from HINARI. 2006 recorded the highest citation rate over non-HINARI with 57.7%, and 2010 recorded the lowest citation rate with 54%. The result also shows that the articles citation count for HINARI journals revolved around 56%. Hence, there is no remarkable change in the citation count for the 5 years studied.
% Journal arƟcle cited
152
2007
2008
2009 Year of citaƟon
2010
2011
Figure 2 Percentage yearly distribution of cited journals* from HINARI list and non-HINARI list. *Yearly citation to journals in NJCP: 2007 = 505, 2008 = 514, 2009 = 628, 2010 =636, 2011 = 854.
Journal subject is an access point through which users can locate information in HINARI. The journal collections on the HINARI portal were classified under 62 subjects. Journals cited in NJCP were found in 41 subjects. Table 3 shows that 3592 articles were accessed from 15 subjects of the 41 subjects. This represents 81.9% of the total article citation from HINARI. The remaining 26 subjects were cited 792 times (18.1%). General medicine, Gynaecology and obstetrics, surgery, internal medicine and paediatrics were the top five subjects cited accruing 2377 citations, which represents 54.2% of the total articles cited from HINARI.
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Measuring HINARI use in Nigeria, Ebele N. Anyaoku & Chinwe V. Anunobi
Twenty most cited journals from HINARI and non-HINARI in NJCP
Table 3 Fifteen most cited subjects of journals from HINARI
S/N
Subject
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Medicine (General) Gynecology/Obstetrics Surgery Internal Medicine Pediatrics Ophthalmology Urology Endocrinology and Metabolism Pathology Oncology Tropical Medicine Gastroenterology Cardiology Anesthesia Public Health Total
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Journal title count
Total article count
% of Total N = 4384
78 44 59 69 41 24 13 18
800 681 321 317 258 195 173 129
18.3 15.5 7.3 7.2 5.9 4.5 4.0 2.9
31 34 9 18 17 10 26 491
127 123 101 99 95 94 79 3592
2.9 2.8 2.3 2.3 2.1 2.1 1.8 81.9
Table 4 shows twenty most cited journals from HINARI and non-HINARI. The twenty most cited journals from HINARI had their articles cited 1401 times. This represents 31.96% of the 4384 articles cited from HINARI journal. Twenty most cited journals from non-HINARI journals had their articles cited 1156 times. This represents 33.7% of the 3432 articles cited from non-HINARI journals. The twenty most cited HINARI journals had 245 article citations more than those of non-HINARI journals. Despite higher article citation rate recorded for HINARI journals, West African Journal of Medicine, a non-HINARI journal cited 198 times, is the highest cited journal in NJCP in the five volumes analysed. Lancet is the most cited journal in the HINARI set accruing 173 citations. Nineteen of the twenty most cited journals from HINARI are
Table 4 Twenty most cited journals from HINARI and non-HINARI
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
HINARI journals
Non-HINARI journals
N = 4384
N = 3432
Journal title
Total article citation
Lancet British Medical Journal. (BMJ) New England Journal of Medicine International Journal of Gynaecology & Obstetrics Am Journal Obstetrics Gynaecology Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology African Journal of Reproduction Health Obstetrics and Gynaecology Journal of Urology Pediatrics Bulletin of World Health Organization Diabetic Care British Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology Fertility & Sterility British Journal of Surgery British Journal of Urology International Annals of Internal Medicine Contraception British Journal of Ophthalmology Total
173 128 119 89 87 82 77 73 70 59 54 52 49 49 45 40 40 39 38 38 1401
Journal title West African Journal of Medicine Tropical Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology East African Medical Journal African Journal of Medicine & Medical Sciences Nigerian Journal of Medicine Nigerian Journal of Pediatrics Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice Nigerian Medical Practitioner Tropical Doctor Nigerian Medical Journal Nigerian Postgraduate Medical Journal Tropical & Geographic Medicine Central Africa Journal of Medicine Nigerian Journal of Ophthalmology Journal of Tropical Pediatrics South African Medical Journal Journal of Trauma American Journal of Epidemiology Journal of National Medical Association Radiology
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Total article citation 198 120 116 78 64 58 55 52 52 44 43 41 37 33 31 31 29 28 23 23 1156
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foreign-based publications. Only African Journal of Reproductive Health is a local-based journal. Comparatively, nine of the twenty most cited journals from non-HINARI journals are published in Nigeria, three are regional journals and eight are foreignbased journals. Discussion HINARI was conceived and set up by partners of Research4life to provide timely, relevant and highquality information with the focus of helping developing countries to improve health research and develop skills.5 The main purpose of the study was to measure HINARI use in Nigeria through a citation analysis of a leading Nigerian biomedical journal; Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice (NJCP). The use of HINARI was measured by comparing journal citations in NJCP available in HINARI with non-HINARI journals. The result of the citation analysis shows that a total of 7816 journal articles were cited from 1775 journal titles in the five volumes of NJCP analysed. Breakdown of this figure indicates a two-dimension result. There is a higher citation to non-HINARI journals which accrued 57.2% of the 1775 journal titles cited in NJCP in the 5 years under review. On the contrary, when considered in terms of total articles cited from each group of journals, HINARI journals have a greater citation of 56.1% compared with non-HINARI journals. The findings that show higher article citation from HINARI journals compared with nonHINARI journals and the repeated use of the titles available in HINARI suggest a probability that health researchers in Nigeria are using the resource to a measurable extent. These findings tend to corroborate the 9-year impact analysis by Research4Life that found increased use of HINARI journals compared with non-HINARI journals.13 However, any inference or conclusion to be made from the results obtained in the present study should be considered with the view of the limitation associated with citation analysis of this nature. It has been pointed out that the most common of limitations of unobtrusive methods of counting article citation is interpretive. A citation does not show how a resource was obtained. This is because an author may cite from the abstract of an
article or copy a cited work by another author.12 Equally, many online journals have print editions especially for older years. Citation analysis has no method of verifying format of access leading to the probability of wrong classifications. This might be quite applicable in the present research work. A good percentage of titles available in HINARI is open access on the Internet.19 For instance, four of the twenty most cited journals from HINARI, namely Lancet, BMJ, African Journal of Reproduction Health and Bulletin of World Health Organization are open-access journals. Five others are on delayed open access from six to twelve months after date of publication. They are New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Diabetic Care, British Journal of Urology International and Annals of Internal Medicine. Equally, many of the journals have both print and non-print editions. Considering these scenarios, there is no method of verifying how and in what format the journals were accessed in the analysis. Despite this limitation, it is pertinent to note that some of the current open-access journals may not have been open access as at the time the researches that were analysed in this report were carried out. It is also important to note that these titles found useful in the research activities of these Nigerian health professionals are available in HINARI and that the probable free availability of these journals through HINARI lends them to repeated use by different authors in diverse locations of the country within the same time frame. As has been noted, over ninety institutions are registered with HINARI in Nigeria. The findings of the citation analysis of NJCP therefore suggest that HINARI to some extent may be contributing to the vision of its initiator and donors to improve research and healthcare in developing countries. Conclusions Findings from citation analysis of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice show that researchers are repeatedly citing journal titles available in HINARI at a higher rate than non-HINARI journals titles. The repeated citations of many of the HINARI titles suggest that they may be used because of their free availability. Although citation analysis as a tool to determine use of information resources
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Measuring HINARI use in Nigeria, Ebele N. Anyaoku & Chinwe V. Anunobi
does not reveal how these resources are obtained, it is pertinent to observe that these titles accessed and considered relevant to the research process of these health professionals are available in HINARI. Based on this premise, it can be concluded that researchers in Nigeria are using the HINARI resource to a measurable extent. This attests to the value and positive impact of this initiative from World Health Organization in partnership with participating publishers that was begun eleven years ago to improve health research and save lives in emerging economies. It also underscores the need for its continual availability and widespread publicising and marketing by information professionals in the country so that every health professional will be giving the opportunity to improve his knowledge and skills as well as carry out effective research. Conflict of interest and source of funding The research was not funded by any organization or institution. References 1 Musoke, M. G. N. Information and its value to health workers in rural Uganda: a qualitative perspective. Health Librararies Review 2000, 17, 194–202. 2 Voronin, Y., Mvrahmetvov, A. & Bernstein, A. Access to scientific publication: The scientists perspective. Plos One 2011, 6, e27868. Accessible at: http://www.plosone.org/ article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0027868. 3 Aronson, B. & Long, M. Forward: making a difference. Research 4life.2012. Accessible at: www.research4life.org 4 Goulding, A. Information poverty or overload? Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 2001, 33, 109–111. 5 Research4life. Accessible at: www.who.int/hinari/promotional_materials/2013_foldable_english.pdf 6 WIPO’s ARDI Programme Joins Research4LifeAccessible at: www.wipo.int/ardi/en/research4life.html 7 Kahkireddi, S. V. HINARI: bridging the global information divider. British Medical Journal 2004, 328, 1190–1193. 8 Royall, J. & Lyon, B. Sea – change or change challenge? Health Information access in developing countries: The US National Library of medicine experience. African Health Sciences 2011, 11, 457–463.
9 Kuruvilla, S., Dzenowagis, J., Pleasant, A., Dwivedi, R., Murthy, N. & Samuel, R. & Schooltz, M. Digital bridges need concrete foundations: lessons from the Health InterNetwork India. British Medical Journal 2004, 328, 1193–1196. 10 Eyers, J. A closer look at Hinari. What it is, what it offers, and how to access it. Africa Health 2010. Accessible at: http:// www.africa-health.com/articles/may_2010/Library_14.pdf 11 Aronson, B. Improving online access to medical information for low-income countries. New England Journal of Medicine 2004, 350, 966–968. Accessible at: http://content.nejm.org/ cgi/content/full/350/10/966. 12 Ross, V. T. & Buckles, C. The Health Internetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) in eligible American countries: benefits, challenges and relationship to Internet use. First Monday 2011, 16, Accessible at: http://firstmonday. org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/ 3076/30 13 Parker, K. Outcomes from a free access partnership: HINARI Impact after Nine Years. World Library And Information Congress: 76th IFLA General Conference And Assembly 10-15 August 2010, Gothenburg, Sweden. Accessible at: http://conference.ifla.org/past/ifla76/100-parker-en. pdf 14 Davis, P. D. & Walters, W. H. The impact of free access to the scientific literature: a review of recent research. Journal of the Medical Library Association 2011, 99, 208–217. Accessible at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC3133904/ 15 Liang, L. & Rousseau, R. Reference analysis: a view in the mirror of citation analysis. Geometrics and Information Science of Wuhan University, 2010, 35, 6–9. Accessible at: http://users.telenet.be/ronald.rousseau/Wuhan_Conference_ 2010.pdf 16 Reinsfelder, T. L. Citation analysis as a tool to measure the impact of individual research consultations. College & Research Libraries 2012, 73, 263–277. 17 Ramesh, L. S. R. C. V. & Nagaraju, A. V. S. S. Citation analysis of the Indian Journal of Information. Library and Society. Indian Journal of Information, Library & Society, 2000, 4, 171–179. 18 Harnad, S. & Brody, T. Comparing the impact of open access (OA) vs. non-OA articles in the same journals. D-Lib Magazine, 2004, 10. Accessible at: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/ june04/harnad/06harnad.html 19 Villafuerte-Galvez, J., Curioso, W. H. & Gayos, O. Biomedical journals and global poverty: is HINARI a Step Backwards? PLoS Medicine, 2007, 4, 220. Accessible at: http:// www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed Received 22 June 2013; Accepted 12 December 2013
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