- UkrINTEI as the National AGRIS/CARIS Center
UkrINTEI is a national information center. It also includes 18 regional centers
of scientific-technical and economic information and the State Scientific and
Technical Library. UkrINTEI has just celebrated the 40th anniversary. Recently
the structure of UkrINTEI has improved and now it comprises the following departments:
Information Resources Center; Forecast and Analytical Center; Educational and
Consulting Center; Advertising and Exhibition Center. (http://www.uintei.kiev.ua/)
The Information Resources Center of the UkrINTEI includes the department for
state recording of R&D works, dissertations and databases; department of administrating
national databases and local networks (where the National AGRIS/CARIS Center
is located); department of development and accompanying software, and technical
provision of information systems. (http://www2.irc.ukrpack.net/)
Information resources of UkrINTEI and their application in AGRIS/CARIS
UkrINTEI is not a fully agricultural structure as it is usually characteristic
of national AGRIS/CARIS branches. However, it possesses ample and important
information resources that are suitable for the utility of AGRIS/CARIS:
State Scientific-Technical Library; State Patent Fund; Department for State
Recording with R&D works, dissertations and databases; scientific reports and
dissertations from all over Ukraine recorded and stored in electronic format.
UkrINTEI also maintains Ukraine's meta-database. All the above establishments
and resources also comprise extensive agricultural data. This serves as counter
proof for those who believe that agricultural information resources like AGRIS
and CARIS databases should be located in agricultural institutions only.
UkrINTEI has been developing, collecting and providing open access to national
information resources. Georgian, Armenian and Kazakhstan's Institutes of Scientific-Technical
Information have recently also included AGRIS/CARIS what points to the similarity
of addressing this subject in certain countries.
AGRIS/CARIS activities
Between 1995 and 1998 AGRIS/CARIS was a part of the UkrINTEI's agricultural
information department. In early 1998 it was transferred to the UkrINTEI's Information
Resources Center. Today it is located in the so-called computer heart of the
institution and is equipped with modern hardware and software infrastructure.
The two AGRIS/CARIS main tasks in Ukraine are organizing and preparing of input,
and dissemination of AGRIS/CARIS databases information.
UkrINTEI has been submitting input to the system as of 1995. Input is steady
but with some 600 records not very extensive so there should be an increase
in number of records. For 3 years the input has been prepared by only one person
which, due to numerous other AGRIS/RELATED activities, has been unable to increase
the number of records. The number of records therefore does not reflect the
true agricultural information capacity of Ukraine.
The main input effort is aimed at covering all of agriculture and food activities.
Documents are drawn from the UkrINTEI's information resources. Special attention
is accorded to nonconventional literature, such as scientific/research reports
from all over Ukraine. Like in CABI database, almost all (98-99%) Ukrainian
records are supplied with abstracts. All abstracts are prepared at the AGRIS/CARIS
center. The CARIS input was begun in late 1998.
With joining of AGRIS/CARIS by a number of CIS (Commonwealth of Independent
States) countries the FAO had AGRIS input pack translated into Russian in order
to facilitate input. The translation was carried out by an UkrINTEI's representative
and is available on the Internet.
Human resources
Center is employing skilled computer specialists. Recently two more specialists
have joined the Center: one with linguistic and another with agricultural background.
They have been trained to prepare input and with their help the input will hopefully
increase. Given the quantity of AGRIS/CARIS activities there still exists an
acute lack of personnel.
In the CIS countries at present the agricultural science and practice are experiencing
acute lack of scientific and technical information. AGRIS/CARIS information
may be a way out of the situation. It is, e.g., being disseminated by UkrINTEI
all over Ukraine. The users that have no access to the WWW get information on
diskettes and by E-mail. Among them are institutions of the Ukrainian Academy
of Agricultural Sciences, including those that are situated far from the capital
of Ukraine: Institute of Bast Crops (Hluhiv, Sumy region), Bila Tserkva Agricultural
University (Kyiv region), West-Ukrainian Center of Farming (Khmelnytsk region),
Poltava Agricultural Institute, Seed Inspection of Ukraine, Institute of Raising
Qualification of Leading Specialists of Food Industry, Research Institute of
Horticulture and many others. The circle of users is continually growing. Users
may visit the Center and familiarize themselves with the databases at the site.
Improved logistics and means of communication provide for better services. As
the popularity of AGRIS gr ]ows so does a demand for full documents found in
AGRIS. Information on AGRIS system were resented at several conferences .
Participation of the Ukrainian representative at the 4th Technical Consultation
in Rome in June 1998 was sponsored by FAOIt contributed a lot to the understanding
the tasks of a national AGRIS/CARIS Center in the field of capacity building.
All the materials have been translated into Ukrainian and delivered to the institutions
that show interest in obtaining them. The Technical Consultation resolutions
have been translated and presented at the Conference dedicated to UkrINTEI's
40th Anniversary.
Organizing all-Ukrainian input through setting up of sub-centers
From the very beginning of the AGRIS/CARIS presence in Ukraine the attempts
have been made to set up national network of sub-centers. But under the conditions
of economic difficulties in all the CIS countries the idea is not attainable.
Despite training courses that were organized at UkrINTEI for a number of institutions
none of those continue with preparation of input. Institutions outside of Kyiv
have no opportunity to send specialists for training. A possible explanation
may also be that the procedure of preparing input is rather complicated and
requires good knowledge of English. In previous years almost all research institutions
had translators on their staff. At present staff of research institutions is
being downsized. As research institutions cannot offer competitive salaries
skilled translators and specialists seek employment with foreign companies or
abroad.
Prospects
With regard to the future the huge iceberg of the problems has to be partitioned
into lesser sub-problems. Taking into consideration the difficulties with the
setting up of the national network of sub-centers the problem may be resolved
in the following way:
UkrINTEI as a national scientific information and also as a AGRIS/CARIS Center
collects agricultural and food information in the Ukrainian language from other
research and educational institutions and libraries. This activity is preceded
by the processing of all the documents at the respective locations by using
translated AGRIS/CARIS Categorization Scheme and the AGROVOC thesaurus. Bibliographic
descriptions are made in Ukrainian. The collected data are centrally processed,
translated into English, and submitted to FAO. A high necessity so exists of
translating AGRIS/CARIS Categorization Scheme and AGROVOC into Ukrainian. Potential
partners will be provided with translated documents. This plans coincide with
the trend in AGRIS of translating AGROVOC into national languages. UkrINTEI
has intentions to continue to develop the network of sub-centers. It should,
however, be also aided by some other establishments.
The progress of AGRIS/CARIS in Ukraine and resolving the tasks of the National
AGRIS/CARIS Center requires funding. At present there is an acute lack of resources
for this purpose. Getting more funds is planned by initiating a number of information
projects. AGRIS/CARIS is looking for partners in Ukraine and is open for international
cooperation in the field.