US Is Creating a Virtual Library to Help Restore Iraqi Science

Scientists working in the US State and Defense departments are championing a program intended to reconnect the once-vibrant Iraqi science community with researchers around the globe.

A program that began last year with a simple question asking what the US could do to help Iraqi scientists and engineers may soon bring thousands of scientific journals to Iraqi universities via an internet-based virtual scientific library. The virtual library would be a step toward replacing vast amounts of information lost in Iraqi libraries that were looted or destroyed in the wake of the US invasion in March 2003.

The Iraq Virtual Science Library project (IVSL), being overseen by the US State Department but funded initially by $364 000 from the Department of Defense's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), should be up and running by early next year, provided several hurdles are cleared. Officials at the National Academy of Sciences are trying to finalize reduced- fee contracts with journal publishers, State Department officials are trying to conclude agreements with Iraqi universities on who will have access to the library, and defense officials are trying to put together a computer network to make the virtual library work.

"There are a large number of trained physicists and other scientists in Iraq," said physicist Barrett Ripin, a senior science diplomacy officer at the State Department. "This library is a way for them to become current and part of the world's scientific community." Iraqi scientists are "hungry to make connections and to collaborate with other scientists and the virtual library will help them do that."

While the effort to establish the library is being promoted within the US government as one of the more positive stories coming from the war-torn country, the state of science in Iraq, and even the number of scientists left in that country, remain open questions. An Iraqi physicist educated in the US said in response to questions via e-mail from PHYSICS TODAY, "Scientific and teaching programs are severely damaged because of the serious destruction of equipment. In addition, no chances have been available for scientists to be abroad for updating their knowledge."

The Iraqi physicist, who insisted on anonymity for security reasons, said there are many physicists still in Iraq, "but I cannot give a number." The physicist said scientists working in Iraq use the internet as much as possible to find "free scientific materials. Not many can pay for the needed ones." The virtual library, the scientist said, "is a helpful part of the story, but equipment and scientific training and knowledge are other important and necessary parts."

Security concerns

Many Iraqi academics, including most scientists, are worried about security and kidnapping, a State Department official said, and a recent report in Science magazine quoted an Iraqi engineering professor as saying at least 58 professors, 150 medical doctors, and dozens of scientists have been murdered since the war officially ended in April 2003. A State Department official indicated he had no reason to doubt those numbers. It is within that violent context that the virtual library is being created, and many of those involved noted that it was just a starting point in trying to restore Iraqi science.

"We should recognize that this is the beginning of the reintegration of the Iraqi science and technology community into the international science community," said George Atkinson, science and technology adviser to the US Secretary of State. "But I emphasize that there are many other steps to be taken."

A State Department scientist who met with several Iraqi scientists said that in the midst of war, many of them are being pragmatic about their science. "They are talking about proposals that have to do with redevelopment of their country, so they are interested in materials for reconstruction—high-strength concrete and stuff like that. The virtual library will help them do that. And it will enable the Iraqis to communicate with authors of scientific papers. With a click, they'll be able to write e-mails to other scientists and get connections going, something they can't do now."

The idea for IVSL came from scientists working at DTRA who were discussing what could be done for Iraqi scientists. The discussion turned to the lack of access to scientific journals, and within a few months a proposal had been written and funding provided. The program and much of the money were moved to the State Department, which is more accustomed to overseeing international initiatives. State Department officials then turned to the National Academy of Sciences, where Wendy White, director of the board on international scientific organizations, became the lead person on the project.

"Our job is content acquisition," White said. "Our goal is the highest-impact content from all fields of science." White wants commercial scientific journals and journals from professional organizations such as the American Institute of Physics for the site, she said. AIP publishes PHYSICS TODAY. In addition, she hopes to join with the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization to provide wider access to their publications.

High-impact journals

"We're looking for the highest-impact journals from chemistry, physics, and the Earth sciences," she said, "and we've just started negotiations with the professional societies that publish many of those." Doug LaFrenier, who is handling the journal negotiations for AIP, said the IVSL project "is interesting to us not as a revenue source, but as a project in a devastated country. The mission is to support science and it fits into the mission of AIP."

White, who worked with the State Department last year to set up a similar virtual library for Pakistani scientists, said she is "not looking for journals to be given gratis to the project. I want to make sure that the resources are valued and will eventually be financed in Iraq. I think it's important that it be based on a business model."

What White wants, and what many journal publishers in addition to AIP are apparently offering, is deep discounts so that payment for the journals is largely symbolic. LaFrenier noted that AIP is asking only for a "nominal payment." White is working with $150 000 in State Department funds to pay for the journals and other costs associated with setting up the program.

An IVSL overview document written by scientists involved in the project says that in addition to providing access to thousands of scientific journals, the library will "provide links to e-classes and course material, research funding opportunities, fellowships, and professional societies." In addition, the library will "help preserve existing intellectual capital and encourage new international scientific collaborations." The document also explains DTRA's interest in the project by noting that "building strong ties between Iraq and the international scientific and engineering communities is essential for fostering open, transparent communication and developing the networks needed to _1fight global terrorism."

In its initial stages, the IVSL will be hosted on Defense Department computers at the Defense Technology Information Center. An early version of the library has been set up at https://ivsl.org, but beyond its home page, it is accessible only to a handful of Iraqi scientists who are testing the system. Negotiations are under way with Sun Microsystems Inc for several servers and software to run the library, according to a scientist involved in the project. In its initial stages, the library will serve scientists at Basra University, the University of Baghdad, Al-Nahrain University, the University of Technology, the University of Al-Mustansyriah, Mosul University, and the University of Sulaimani. The Iraqi National Academy of Sciences will also be connected.

Atkinson, Ripin, White, and others noted that it is not just the war that has disrupted science in Iraq. Although Iraq developed strong academic and scientific communities from the 1950s through the 1970s, the Iran–Iraq war, which began in 1980 and continued for eight years, drained money from almost all of Iraq's sciences. In a recent report to the Middle East Librarians Association, Jeff Spurr, an Islamic and Middle East specialist at Harvard University, wrote that with the beginning of the Iran–Iraq war, "promising students ceased being sent abroad to the US and the UK for their higher degrees, and funds dried up for purchases of books and journal subscriptions." The problem was made worse by the 1991 United Nations embargo on Iraq following the first Gulf War. The embargo "dispensed with what little foreign contact Iraqi universities and their libraries had had with the outside world," Spurr wrote.

The immediate goal is to get the IVSL online for Iraqi scientists by January or February 2006. Officials hope they will eventually be able to establish wireless networks at Iraqi universities so the library will be easy to use, but that is expected to take much longer.

"Iraqi scientists clearly haven't had access to the rest of the science communities for more than two decades," Atkinson said. "It is difficult to imagine how any community could remain up-to-date without that access to the world. It is obvious that the IVSL could be an important tool to allow them to reenter the scientific world."

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