Library |SDI  |Current Contents | Literature Search |Document Delivery
Publications Distribution |  Training |Science Direct

Library services: ILRI maintains two libraries; one at ILRI-Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa, and one at ILRI-Kenya, in Nairobi. Between the two sites,  the libraries subscribe to 250 journals and house 75,000 monographs. While the ILRI-Kenya library specialises in the biological sciences, the ILRI-Ethiopia library offers a wider spectrum of disciplines, ranging from agricultural economics to veterinary science. The ILRI-Ethiopia library also houses a unique microfiche collection of 22,000 unpublished documents from research centers  in 27 sub-Saharan African countries.

The libraries circulate books and periodicals to ILRI staff and registered external users. On both campuses users may access the institute's in-housedatabases via ILRI's local area network and external databases on CD-ROM or via the Internet. Both libraries are staffed with experienced information specialists who offer a full reference support service to users, helping them perform their own searches or performing the searches and delivering the retrieved documents.

Selective dissemination of information: ILRI's SDI service, called ILRIalerts, draws its data from the monthly updates to ILRI's in-house bibliographic database. ILRIalerts also has a built-in feedback mechanism to monitor the usefulness of this service to each user. A total of 420 users from 39 Countries subscribe to the service. Since 1998, users can receive their SDI results by email.

Current contents service: The content pages of journals are regularly perused by ILRI documentalists. To this are added data from current contents on CD-ROM and from the Internet. This regular service is presently provided to 56 libraries in national agricultural systems in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Literature search service: The staff of both libraries provide literature searches to ILRI staff and external users on ILRl's in-house or external bibliographic databases and on the Internet. Users can request searches by mail, e-mail, telephone or fax. 

Document delivery: The libraries provide users with photocopy reprints of documents held in the libraries and copies of microfiched documents.

Publication distribution: Information Services distributes publications produced by ILRI. New documents are regularly sent to selected partners and external publics from our mailing list. Documents may also be requested individually by mail or email. To be included on our mailing list, please send a brief profile of yourself (agency) indicating how ILRI's publications may help improve your work at the following addresses.
contact us:ilri-information@cgiar.org 

Training on Information Management:  Up-to-date and relevant information is key to implementing successful research and development activities. Therefore information professionals need adequate exposure to new developments in information management and dissemination. For a number of years, ILRI has been organising training courses on information management aimed at supporting information specialists in national agricultural research systems. These courses focus at various aspects of agricultural information services such as managing agricultural information services, selective dissemination of information (SDI), assessment of user information needs, design and management of information services, promotion and marketing of agricultural information services and products, etc. The courses consist of lectures, exchange of experiences, visits to information centres, assignments, group work and individual projects. 

ILRI also regularly employs students from library/information management schools in Addis Ababa and Nairobi. 

ScienceDirect: is an online service, available on the internet, containing the full text of all journals published by Elsevier. ILRI's subscription to ScienceDirect provides its staff at ILRI-Ethiopia, ILRI-Kenya and ILRI's zonal sites in South America, Asia and Africa access to all Elsevier journals in electronic format.  Articles from journals to which ILRI subscribes can be downloaded for free. Articles from other journals can be downloaded on a pay-per-article basis.