Frequently asked questions and answers
If your doubts or questions have not been satisfactorily answered, please send an email to sidalc@iica.int and we will gladly address your concerns.
SIDALC is an international alliance of information services on agriculture, fisheries, forestry and the environment, involving a group of key institutions from 22 countries of the Americas that network to share information and services. Established in 1999, it has become one of the most important windows for accessing sector-specific knowledge in LAC. SIDALC was established thanks to a donation from the Kellogg Foundation, the technical leadership of IICA and CATIE and the participation of a significant number of national, regional and international institutions. For more information, please see the “About the SIDALC Alliance” link.
The Alliance of Agricultural Information Services provides a window to agricultural knowledge generated in Latin America and the Caribbean. It consists of a Mega Database on agriculture that pulls together the best bibliographic specialist databases on agriculture and other related sciences, produced by national and international institutions, which may be accessed through the internet at web http://www.sidalc.net
We provide the technical and human resources needed to take part in the entire process. First of all, send us the address of your platform’s OAI-PMH exchange protocol. Provide a brief description of the content, topic, address and webpage, if you have one, as well as the name of the person in charge of it and the emails where users can send their requests. It is also important to ensure that AgriPerfiles profiles are created for your library and its staff. Each participating institution will be responsible for the quality, relevance and currency of the included information, as well as for the portfolio of related services.
In the event that the information management tool that you are using has no exchange protocol or any standard system, for example, MARC, Dublin Core, among others, you may advise us of the export options of your tool, in order to determine the best option.
If you are already a member of the Alliance of Agricultural Information Services, you may send the OAI-PMH of your platform. If you have no exchange protocol, you may send the data in MRS format. In the event you have neither of these formats, you may advise us of the export options that you have and we will determine the best option.
The OAI-PMH links are to be emailed to sidalc@iica.int.
The exported repositories may also be emailed to sidalc@iica.int, larger files may be sent via WeTransfer (https://wetransfer.com/)
This will depend on the volume of data handled by your institution. Some institutions undertake this procedure one per month, whereas others do so every two or three months. The most important thing to ensure is that users of SIDALC Alliance services have access to the most current information and that their requests are addressed in a timely manner.
AgriPerfiles is a hemispheric initiative, led by IICA, to increase linkages between agricultural and rural development professionals and their connection to relevant information. (https://agriperfiles.agri-d.net/)
Institutions in the Latin American and Caribbean agriculture sector that wish to register their professionals on the platform should send an email requesting participation to agriperfiles@iica.int
Libraries that are part of the SIDALC Alliance have a profile and thus may request that a professional profile on their information specialists be created. They will also be given access to the profile to update it and will be added to the Directory of libraries in the SIDLAC Alliance The professional profiles will be linked to the Alliance of Information and Documentation Services of the Americas , requests may be sent to sidalc@iica.int
Select the following link, which describes the process to enter information. As you enter text into several of the fields, information entered by other users will be displayed. If this is information that you also require, you may select it. You may use the profile of Dr. Pedro Rocha S. as reference in completing your profile.
Send an email (agriperfiles@iica.int) indicating your request to register the professionals in your institution on AgriPerfiles. Subsequently, we will organize a meeting to discuss the benefits of the platform and to jointly determine the way forward.
Send an email to agriperfiles@iica.int indicating that you wish to reset your password.
The purpose is to share experiences, discuss technical problems and to establish or suggest work methodologies or procedures to be applied in the various information units.
National coordination offices, members of the SIDALC network, agricultural libraries, documentalists and IT specialists from the sector may participate.
Depending on what you wish to do, send an email to automatically subscribe to or unsubscribe from the list.
Subscribe: sidalc+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Unsubscribe: sidalc+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
Moderator/Owner: sidalc+owner@googlegroups.com
Webpage address http://groups.google.com/group/sidalc
The first step to access the statistics is to send us your Gmail address to begin the registration process. At the following address, you may access the NAME-DB database statistics, http://www.google.com/analytics, debe ingresar su correo electrónico y contraseña de gmail.
The which is also described below.
On the left-hand menu select the [Behavior] / [Site content] / [All pages] option and the general content will be immediately displayed. On the right-hand side of the screen, below the graphic, there is a space where you can enter the name of your database, NAME-DB, and select [ENTER] or click on the magnifying glass icon. On the [Select] button, you will see various options that will assist in your analysis.
The statistics for the selected time period will be displayed. The period may be modified in the upper-right hand section of the screen.
The following link describes the location procedure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewfeh18NIGk (Bear in mind that the recording is somewhat low and thus you will need to increase the volume). The map may be accessed at: " Participating Libraries in the SIDALC Alliance "
- To gain access to edit the map, send us a Gmail address.
- Once your Gmail account has been added, an invitation email will be sent to that address.
- The invitation email will contain an access link.
- Press the EDIT button.
- Identify the exact location of your library.
- The marker button (which is blue) will pinpoint the exact location of the library.
- A dialogue box will be provided to insert the information
- At the top, place the name of the institution and the name of the library.
- In the space below this box, type in “Information on library”. We will link the contained information to the library directory.
- In this same dialogue box, select the blue marker on the upper right-hand side, then select “Add an icon”. A space will be included to insert the following link: http://www.sidalc.net/misc/alfiler.png. This will change to the SIDALC marker.
- Finally, in this same dialogue box, select ACCEPT.
- Then, on the right-hand side of the screen, select SAVE and FINALIZE.