Re-launch of African Journals OnLine (AJOL)
http://www.ajol.info
The International Network for Scientific Publications (INASP) launched AJOL
in 1998 with only 14 journals. By January 2004 it had over 175 African
journals covering most subject areas. It is now being re-launched on its own
website that continues to provide free access to tables of contents and
abstracts for all titles - but also provides a number of additional
facilities. AJOL offers a document delivery service, and full (improved)
searching and browsing facilities, as well as a new Email alert function.
The service remains free to both users and participating journals (with
charges only for document delivery requests from outside developing
countries).
Journals included in AJOL are scholarly in content with peer reviewed
articles, and publish a mixture of pure and applied research as well as
review papers. Journals included cover Agricultural sciences and resource
management; Arts, culture, language and literature; Health; Science and
technology; and Social sciences. An evaluation of the AJOL service
undertaken at the end of 2002 showed that participating journals benefit
from the international visibility, with more international submissions and
citations, and that users value access to African research that they have
been unable to locate from other sources. Use of the service has more than
doubled in the past few years (almost 4000 people registered during 2003)
and the demand for document delivery tripled (reaching over 650 articles
during 2003). The evaluation highlighted a need to update the website, to
make it easier to use with an emphasis on improved searching and retrieval
of articles.
In response to the evaluation, the new website now offers a greatly improved
and more sophisticated search system and email alerting to identify new
issues. Journals can also manage their own content online, giving them more
control over their own work. We look forward to more users, an increase in
demand for document delivery and increased worldwide visibility for African
published research.
Please visit the new site - http://www.ajol.info - and sign up for email
alerts to any journals of interest.
We also welcome new journals onto the service - please contact INASP for
further information: ajol@inasp.info or visit our website:
http://www.inasp.info