science

Virtual Health Library

Virtual Health Library is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Virtual Health Library rather than just read about it. In short: The Virtual Health Library (VHL) (Biblioteca Virtual en Salud, BVS) is an institution that employs the World Wide Web to "improve access to reliable, locally relevant information [on health and health sciences] for health-professionals, researchers, academics, educators, decision-makers, and the general public". BVSes are organized under the auspices of the Pan-American Health Organization and the World Health Organ…

Key takeaways

Virtual Health Library belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Virtual Health Library to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Virtual Health Library from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Virtual Health Library (VHL) (Biblioteca Virtual en Salud, BVS) is an institution that employs the World Wide Web to "improve access to reliable, locally relevant information [on health and health sciences] for health-professionals, researchers, academics, educators, decision-makers, and the general public". BVSes are organized under the auspices of the Pan-American Health Organization and the World Health Organization. VHL is a digital library and common space for the convergence of the cooperative work of producers, intermediaries, and users of information on healthcare science, built and developed by the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information (also known as BIREME) in 1998. The VHL promotes the development of a network of sources of scientific and technical information with universal access to the internet. BIREME has envisioned the VHL as a new model for the management of information and knowledge, which includes the cooperation and convergence between institutions, systems, networks, and initiatives of producers, intermediaries, and users in the operation of networks of local, national, regional and international information sources favoring open and universal access. Today, every country in Latin America and the Caribbean regions participates either directly or indirectly in the cooperative products and services offered by the VHL, which includes over 1,000 institutions in more than 30 countries. The VHL is simulated in a virtual space of the internet formed by a collection or network of health information sources in the region. Users of different levels and locations can interact and navigate in the space of one or many information sources, regardless of where they are. Information sources are generated, updated, stored and operated on the internet by producers, integrators, and intermediaries, in a decentralized manner, following common methodologies for their integration in the VHL. The VHL organizes information in a structure that integrates and interconnects literature databases, directories or experts, events and institutions, a catalogue of the information resources available on the internet, collections of full texts with a highlight for the SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) collection of scientific journals, selective information dissemination services, information sources to support education and decision-making, news, discussion lists, and support to virtual communities. The space of the VHL is, therefore, a dynamic and decentralized network of information sources based on which it is possible to retrieve and extract information and knowledge to support health decision-making processes. The Virtual Health Library can be visualized as a distributed base of scientific and technical health knowledge that is saved, organized and stored in electronic format in the countries of the region, universally accessible on the internet and compatible with international databases.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Virtual Health Library

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Virtual Health Library claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Virtual Health Library before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Virtual Health Library ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Virtual Health Library

In research: Virtual Health Library appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Virtual Health Library in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Virtual Health Library is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Aggregation-based digital libraries, Bibliographic databases and indexes, Brazilian digital libraries, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Virtual Health Library outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Virtual Health Library in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Virtual Health Library means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Virtual Health Library out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Virtual Health Library in simple terms?

Why does Virtual Health Library matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Virtual Health Library?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Virtual Health Library.