Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: La Biblioteca Cochrane Plus (BCP) includes Spanish translations of Cochrane reviews and other Spanish language material relevant to evidence-based health care. BCP is freely available in most Spanish-speaking countries (Spain, Latin America and the Caribbean) and in all low-income countries.
Objectives: (1) To assess the importance of BCP as a vehicle for disseminating Cochrane reviews and (2) to estimate the impact of Spanish translations of Cochrane reviews by identifying the countries most frequently accessing Spanish Cochrane reviews, and by assessing how frequently Spanish translations are accessed compared to English language Cochrane reviews.
Methods: We analysed web server logs for the period 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005 and (1) performed reverse-IP look-ups to identify users' countries, and (2) assembled Counter statistics for BCP. John Wiley & Sons supplied comparable Counter statistics for the Wiley InterScience version of The Cochrane Library for the same period.
Results: Over half (53%) of user sessions originated in Spain, followed by Peru and Mexico with roughly 10% each, and then Argentina, Columbia, Chile and Ecuador with roughly 5% each. There were 1,635,211 (over 1.6 million) Spanish abstracts viewed and 870,600 full text translated Cochrane reviews viewed or downloaded as either HTML or PDF documents. This compares to 2,181,701 (2.1 million) abstracts and 1,084,912 full text reviews viewed on Wiley InterScience.
Conclusions: BCP is widely used in Spain and several countries in Latin America. The usage count for Spanish translations of Cochrane reviews accessed via BCP is comparable to that for Cochrane reviews in English accessed via Wiley InterScience. Given the evidence that website access is predictive of impact, we conclude that BCP is an effective and important vehicle for disseminating Cochrane reviews.
Objectives: (1) To assess the importance of BCP as a vehicle for disseminating Cochrane reviews and (2) to estimate the impact of Spanish translations of Cochrane reviews by identifying the countries most frequently accessing Spanish Cochrane reviews, and by assessing how frequently Spanish translations are accessed compared to English language Cochrane reviews.
Methods: We analysed web server logs for the period 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005 and (1) performed reverse-IP look-ups to identify users' countries, and (2) assembled Counter statistics for BCP. John Wiley & Sons supplied comparable Counter statistics for the Wiley InterScience version of The Cochrane Library for the same period.
Results: Over half (53%) of user sessions originated in Spain, followed by Peru and Mexico with roughly 10% each, and then Argentina, Columbia, Chile and Ecuador with roughly 5% each. There were 1,635,211 (over 1.6 million) Spanish abstracts viewed and 870,600 full text translated Cochrane reviews viewed or downloaded as either HTML or PDF documents. This compares to 2,181,701 (2.1 million) abstracts and 1,084,912 full text reviews viewed on Wiley InterScience.
Conclusions: BCP is widely used in Spain and several countries in Latin America. The usage count for Spanish translations of Cochrane reviews accessed via BCP is comparable to that for Cochrane reviews in English accessed via Wiley InterScience. Given the evidence that website access is predictive of impact, we conclude that BCP is an effective and important vehicle for disseminating Cochrane reviews.