Review 2001/1 - POPLINE CD-ROM - Courtesy United Nations Population Fund - UNFPA

Type, size and coverage dates:

POPLINE, the POPulation Information OnLINE, is the world's largest bibliographic references database on population. It provides citations and abstracts of the worldwide literature on population, family planning and related health issues. POPLINE brings together over 250,000 records representing the published and un-published literature in the field. Primarily English language items but international in scope and publications from 1970 to the present with selected citations dating back to 1886.

Subjects:

POPLINE provides worldwide coverage of population, family planning, and related health issues, including family planning technology and programs, fertility, and population law and policy. In addition, it specially focuses on particular developing-country issues including demography, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, maternal and child health, primary health care communication, women empowerment, gender issues and population and environment. In these areas, the items reported are limited to those about developing countries only.

Sources of Information:

Utilizing sources from all over the world, POPLINE collects materials from; Population/family planning organizations, Government reports and publications, Print bibliographies, Visitors, Databases--clinical medicine, education, psychology, sociology, Library acquisition lists, Faculty and staff of universities involved in POPLINE maintenance and the International agencies.

Type of literature:

All types of literature are included, abstracted and indexed in POPLINE. They might be Books and book chapters, Technical reports, Journal articles, Laws, bills, and court decisions, Papers presented at conferences, Theses and dissertations, Limited-distribution, unpublished reports, Newspaper articles or the Training manuals. In most subject categories, the information items are limited to those about developing countries only.

Target users and use:

POPLINE is an excellent information resource for the UN Program officers, consultants and/or focal points, working in areas of population and family planning, women issues and community health issues. It can help them keep up-to-date on particular topics, compile an individual or organizational publications list, identify consultants in specific fields, review the literature prior to writing a proposal or beginning a research project, gather material for a lecture or speech, identify documents for library acquisition, find background information on a country or region before your trip, locate the appropriate journal for submission of your paper, do research, or to find training materials in a specific language.

Policy makers, researchers, doctors, academics, NGO's and students involved in research or community services in the areas of population in the developing countries will also find it an essential tool for their work.

Availability and Updates:

POPLINE is available Online as well as on CD-ROM. The online database is updated each month while the POPLINE CD-ROM is updated every six months. Monthly, about 975 new citations are added. Approximately 10,000 records are added annually.

Access:

The POPLINE database on CD-ROM, is available for free consultation, in the UN Common Library, Islamabad. It can be accessed from any UN House computer, through a CD-Net Server on UN LAN. Also, the entire POPLINE database is accessible for free at the U.S. National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Internet Grateful Med Web site, on the URL: http://igm.nlm.nih.gov/index.html or through the POPLINE Web site on URL: http://www.jhuccp.org.

Please visit the UN Common Library to consult POPLINE through our Free Internet Access Terminals. Otherwise, please feel free to use Ask UNCOL, our email-based electronic reference service, for further help or to make database searches for you on the topic of your request and send the search results via return email. The library can also help you to install permanent online access to POPLINE from your computer (in UN house only). If desired, we can also arrange a limited free of cost Electronic Document Delivery of 10 to 15 documents selected from POPLINE database search results.

POPLINE has been made available to the UN Common Library for free public use by the courtesy of UNFPA - Pakistan Office.