Latindex - Online Regional Information System for Scholarly Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal – Is based on the co-operation of a network of institutions that function in a coordinated manner in order to gather and disseminate bibliographic information concerning the scientific serial publications produced in the region.

The potential users of Latindex are all those that use, exchange and generate scientific information published in the region, such as: researchers, teachers, students, managers and planners of scientific activities, publishers, librarians and information specialists.

Latindex also serves the international community (organizations and/or individuals), interested in the contents, subjects and actions related to science and the scientific information in the region.

The mission of the System is to disseminate, make accessible and raise the quality of the scientific serial publications produced in the region through the sharing of resources.

In order to do so, Latindex coordinates collecting, processing, dissemination and scientific information use and production actions.

Particular objectives

To establish policies and actions that lead to:

• Integrating the efforts that are carried out in the various areas and participating countries regarding production, dissemination, systematization and use of scientific information.
• Reinforcing and raising the quality and impact of scientific publications from Latin American countries and the Caribbean.
• Giving the preceding publications greater visibility and coverage at an international level.
• Using the processed information as a basis for the elaboration of sub products.
• Influencing the domestic and international spheres regarding information, documentation and scientific publishing.

Goals

• To develop an information system in order to access and carry out information searches in the scientific serial publications from Latin America and the Caribbean.
• To develop the human and information science infrastructure that supports said information system.
• To achieve a high quality compilation of the information published.
• To establish quality criteria and standards for the publishing of scientific serial publications.
• To establish links with other information systems, databases and publishers of scientific serial publications.

• Geographic:Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal.
• By subject:Here, we take into account all the serials regarding exact, natural, social and human sciences.
• By language:This refers to any language used in the region.

Latindex makes available to its users three basic information products:

The Directory, which from 1997 provides the standardized information of a wide range of scholarly journals or journals of academic interest, along with information that allows the users to know their history, specialized subjects, publisher, publishing authorities, full address, distribution procedures, prices and databases covered by the journals among others. To date, the Directory has more than 15,000 records.

The Catalogue, which was uploaded on March 2002, with descriptive information and additional contents to those offered by the Directory. The titles included in the Catalogue have been selected and classified according to international criteria regarding publishing quality which have been previously proved and accepted by the Latindex System.

The Link to electronic journals, grants direct access to a growing collection of full text online journals. To date, the Index has more than 2,400 links to journals.