A new global digital library on ethics was launched in Geneva on 9 October 2008. This library will provide users free access to full text versions of over 200 journals and over a million documents, mainly in the field of applied ethics.
The digital library on ethics was developed by Globethics.net, a global network organization with the objective of empowering people in all religions of the world to reflect and act on ethical issues. They developed the Globethics.net Library to ensure that persons and institutions - especially in Africa, Asia and Latin-America - have access to good quality and up to date knowledge resources. There is no cost involved in using the library.
. "Access to information and communication is a key instrument of development," said Walter Fust, president of Globethics.net, "The North-South digital divide is still deep," he said. "In the North, people almost drown in a sea of immense information, especially on the Internet. In the South, the situation is often like people in a desert desperately looking for an oasis, where the water of information can help them to survive."
Christoph Stückelberger, the executive director and founder of Globethics.net, noted that the network had developed automated mechanisms that seek out and collect freely available documents from the Internet. In addition, the organization pays licence fees for about 200 journals on ethics in order to make them available in the Globethics.net library.
Registered users can also upload scholarly documents into the library in order to make them available to others. "We are only at the beginning; new documents are being uploaded every day," said Stückelberger.
Source: ENI www.eni.ch