Background: Many practitioners in East Africa rely on Google for literature searches, resulting in untold amounts of irrelevant or non-scholarly material in addition to lack of access to full text. The Ptolemy Project was established in 2001 to allow surgeons in East Africa access to the University of Toronto's online resources. Participation has increased to include physicians in all medical fields.
Objectives: The Project offers a means of obtaining up-to-date information for clinical decision support via the online resources (databases, e-journals, e-books) available from the University of Toronto Library as well as additional resources directly from individual publishers. The University of Toronto library system is ranked third in North America, after Harvard and Yale, with over 1,000,000 electronic resources.
Methods: Registration is required; the registration form is on the Project's website. Registrants are vetted by staff at the Mount Sinai Hospital library in Toronto. Participants log in with a computer-generated username and password and can then link to available resources. Usage is periodically checked; unused accounts are cancelled to allow others to register, as there is a finite number of participants.
Results: Registration is selective and participation now stands at about 450, up from 90 in 2001. A brief survey was distributed to all users in July 2014, with positive results. Respondents reported that access to material through Ptolemy improved their practice and patient outcomes.
Conclusions: The Ptolemy Project is an invaluable means for physicians and clinical residents in East Africa to obtain both up-to-date and historical health information that would not otherwise be readily available.