Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) is an initiative to provide free or low-cost access to major scientific journals in agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences to public institutions in developing countries. Launched in October 2003, AGORA provides access to over 400 journals from the world's leading academic publishers.
Led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the goal of AGORA is to increase the quality and effectiveness of agricultural research, education and training in low-income countries, and in turn, to improve food security. Researchers, policy-makers, educators, students, technical workers and extension specialists will have access to high-quality, relevant and timely agricultural information via the Internet.
Blackwell Publishing, CABI Publishing, Elsevier, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, Nature Publishing Group, Oxford University Press, Springer-Verlag, and John Wiley & Sons are the founding publishers of AGORA, providing access to over 500 of their journals. Additional publishers will be invited to participate in AGORA.
The AGORA Publisher Partners are opening access free to relevant institutions in countries, generally with an annual GNI per capita per annum of US$1000 or less at 31 December 2000. The countries currently include: Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Moldova, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tokelau, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Republic of Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Within these countries AGORA will benefit not-for-profit national academic, research or government institutions in agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences. Eligible institutions whose staff and students may have access to the journals are: universities and colleges; research institutes; agricultural extension centers, government offices, and libraries. Potential users will be required to register with FAO, and access to AGORA will be password controlled.
Participating institutions will need computers connected to the Internet with a connection of 56k baud rate or higher. The system is designed to work best with Internet Explorer version 4.0 or higher, or Netscape version 6 or higher. Users will also need an Adobe Acrobat viewer for journal articles in PDF format.
To join, please complete the online AGORA registration form under:
http://www.aginternetwork.org/en/registration.php
Only one registration is required per institution.
For more information:
http://www.aginternetwork.org/en/about.php