Kyrgyzstan: promoting professional and personal development

The Kyrgyz Republic, known as “the Switzerland of Central Asia" due to the high mountains that cover most of the country, became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States. In 2007, its gross domestic product (GDP) was ranked at 139 out of 179 countries by the International Monetary Fund.

The Kyrgyzstan Library Information Consortium (KLIC) was formed in 2002 with the goal to develop the Kyrgyz “information space” in order to promote social, cultural, educational and scientific development, and to foster library integration into the global information community. “The consortium is about much more than providing access to electronic databases, although this is a core part of what we do”, said Sania Battalova, eIFL country coordinator. “We benefit from sharing experiences and learning about new ideas, such as open access and open source software, which contribute to our professional development.” “For example”, added Safia Rafikova, eIFL Open Access coordinator, “we are establishing the first open archive in central Asia that is OAI (Open Archives Initiative) compliant. The documents can be fully harvested, so that Kyrgyz content effectively belongs to one global collection, accessible to everyone. And, of course, foreign material is available to Kyrgyz researchers and scientists. Without eIFL, we wouldn’t have known about the importance of interoperability and its powerful potential for library users, when setting up our archive”.

Library users are at the heart of the consortium’s activities. We asked some local scientists and researchers to tell us about their experiences.

Tinatin Doolotkeldieva, Dean of Agriculture and Professor of Food Engineering

“I teach at the Food and Environmental Engineering Departments at the Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University in Bishkek. My research interests are environmental microbiology and biotechnology, food safety and biocontrol. It is invaluable to be able to search the online catalogue and scientific journals in the university library. I use several sources, including BioOne, DOAJ, EBSCO, Oxford Journals and SpringerLink, where I can get quick access to abstracts, tables, references and full-text articles in my subject areas. The Electronic System Service of our university has been a great support for me.”

“As a student, the research process was the most challenging for me academically. Online databases provided the best information and enabled me to deepen my knowledge and improve my studies”, said Aygul Hanova, graduate of the European Studies department at the American University of Asia.

Dr. Talant C. Zhumagaziev, Republican Center of Urology, National Hospital, Ministry of Public Health of the Kyrgyz Republic

“I sincerely thank KLIC for the opportunity to use electronic databases, an invaluable resource for my PhD dissertation on pre- and post-operative treatment of hyperplasia of prostate cystitis. The availability of medical research results facilitates debate amongst international colleagues, and has helped us in resolving medical problems in actual cases. I like to work in the central medical library where I have access to databases, and where specialist librarians can assist when I am searching for specific information”.

Dr. Saltanat Mambaeva, Head of Interpretation Department, KTU

“Access to electronic databases since 2004 has proved very convenient for our staff who can now conduct their research from their own offices. It’s been a great bonus, especially as here in Kyrgyzstan, we have little access to well-known libraries or up-to-date materials.”

July 2008