The main purpose of the Institutional Repository for Information Sharing (IRIS) is to facilitate free access in digital format to the scientific-technical production of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) produced by the technical areas of the Central Office, Country Offices and Pan American Centers, as well as the mandates of the Governing Bodies of the Organization together with its Member States. IRIS is consolidated as the PAHO digital library by bringing together the materials produced since the creation of the Organization in 1902 to the present – making it considered the living memory of the institution.
IRIS centralizes production by creating unique links to the literature and allowing the Organization to have better information about the impact of the knowledge generated. These links are then used on the PAHO website, as well as disseminated via social media. In addition, it provides the retrieval of information in online search engines (browsers) and the integration with other repositories and databases (such as the WHO Global Repository and the Virtual Health Library). The technological platform used is DSpace, implemented worldwide with the Dublin Core bibliographic format.
This page aims to present the general policy for the management, selection, description, publication, and preservation of the scientific-technical memory of the Organization. IRIS is essential to ensure the preservation and availability of the institution's technical information, as it increases online access to literature produced by the Organization in an effective and sustainable manner.
Document typology indexed in IRIS
- Mandates of the Governing Bodies
- Pan American Sanitary Conference, Executive Committee, Directing Council, Subcommittee on Program, Budget, and Administration, and Subcommittee on Women, Health, and Development.
- Scientific publications and technical documents
- Serial scientific publications, technical publications, and documents in general. In addition, reports from technical meetings, as well as translations of WHO documents.
- Articles from the Pan-American Journal of Public Health
- Created in 1922 with the title of Bulletin of the Pan American Health Organization.
- Articles from historical technical bulletins published by the Headquarters, Country Offices, and Pan American Centers.
- Multimedia material
- Historical photos of the Organization.
- Awards, distinctions, and recognitions received by PAHO from national and international authorities for the merit of the technical cooperation provided in the region of the Americas.
Governance
As established by the PAHO Publications Policy, IRIS is the official platform for the scientific-technical literature of the Organization and is under the responsibility of the Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health and the Science and Knowledge for Impact Unit (EIH/SK), which also coordinates the actions of PAHO Institutional Memory.
The management of IRIS is conducted through joint work with the Publications area and the Communication (CMU) and Information Technologies (ITS) departments. This work ensures the application of policies, security procedures, standards, technologies, and systems.
The management of IRIS, the creation of new communities and collections, and the indexing and publication of documents are carried out by the EIH/SK team.
Publish documents in IRIS
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Production authored by PAHO or co-authored (as long as PAHO has the archiving rights).
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Free and public access. Confidential documents are automatically excluded, and those from circulation restricted to PAHO are automatically excluded.
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Final and official version. Preliminary or draft documents are automatically excluded.
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Publications must be approved by the Publication area, as well as present the official legal page (copyright page).
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Digital format, preferably with Optical Character Recognition (OCR – Optical Character Recognition) or e-Book (ePub). The entire document must be in the same file and not exceed 10 MB in size. The ideal is to upload files weighing approximately between 5 and 7 MB.
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In the case of documents available in more than one language, a single entry (record) is generated considering the different metadata and incorporating the respective files (files) into the available languages. IRIS generates unique links for each uploaded file, which guarantees the generation of individual metrics.
The indexing of documents in IRIS is the responsibility of EIH/SK. Documents must reach the team through the Organization's internal publication system.
The documents hosted in IRIS will be viewed and downloaded freely and free of charge, by entering the Repository platform at http://iris.paho.org, with no registration or prior authorization, always respecting the conditions set forth in the licenses. use included in their legal page.
PAHO technical units and external users should use the institutional email libraryhq@paho.org to request documents and/or seek additional information about IRIS.
Documents indexed in IRIS may be withdrawn at the request of the technical area, Legal Counsel, Publications area, or EIH/SK, in the following cases: due to an error in the content, duplication of the item, or any other reason that justifies it and without notice.
The IRIS contents are organized into Communities, Sub-communities and Collections, which reflect the organizational structure of the PAHO and in accordance with the indexed documentary typology, which are created and managed exclusively by EIH/SK. The main structure of IRIS is:
The bibliographic description and indexing of documents in IRIS must be in accordance with the metadata of the Dublin Core format and own fields according to the needs of the Organization.
Two preservation mechanisms will be used by the information technology team, in coordination with the Repository administration: one that guarantees the availability of the files permanently, which runs on the platform and is associated with one of the DSpace software features, and the other as a backup, made periodically and externally to this software.
The main regular tasks foreseen in the repository comprise:
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Frequent backups.
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File format monitoring and conversion.
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Periodic updating of the software that supports the repository, to obtain innovation and new functionalities.
The integration of IRIS with other repositories and/or databases occurs through the OAI-PMH protocol. With CMU and ITS, the access doors of these platforms are configured, in accordance with the information security criteria established by PAHO.
Currently, harvesting is only done with the WHO Global Repository (IRIS Global) and with the regional instance of the Virtual Health Library (coordinated with PAHO Legal Counsel). Any other request for integration with IRIS must be formally requested from EIH/SK and approved by the Legal Counsel.