National AGRIS/CARIS Center is located at the Ukrainian Institute of Scientific-Technical and Economic Information (UkrINTEI). Ukraine joined AGRIS/CARIS system in 1995. AGRIS/CARIS is one of a few narrow bridges that link Ukraine with the FAO given that Ukraine is not a FAO member country yet. The 7th Roundtable in Moscow 1999 has been the first time that Ukrainian AGRIS/CARIS has participated at the Roundtable meetings.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.