3 million medical downloads per month

23/03/2018

WHO Library in Geneva releases new features for IRIS, the extensive public health DSpace repository, including statistics and automated recommendations.

Introducing IRIS

The Institutional Repository for Information Sharing (IRIS) is the digital library of WHO’s published material and technical information in full text produced since 1948. Its content is freely accessible and searchable in eight languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Portuguese, Russian & Spanish).

Scale and Statistics

With over 200.000 archived items, IRIS offers content from WHO governing bodies, publications, technical documents, guidelines and journal articles. Over the past 6 months, the repository served over 19 million downloads. This reported volume already excludes robot traffic from identifiable robots.

The Global report on diabetes, the most downloaded publication in the past 6 months and extensively covered in media including TIME magazine, was downloaded over 100.000 times in December alone.

Automated recommendations

IRIS offers the user search term and result recommendations, while the user is actively searching. The search engine does not only suggest additional keywords. It also highlights actual titles, authors, subjects and publishers, matching the search terms entered by the user so far.

When clicked, a preview pane immediately reveals more information about the recommended resource or keyword, enabling fast and efficient content discovery.

About the World Health Organization

WHO aims to build a better, healthier future for people all over the world. Working through offices in more than 150 countries, WHO staff work side by side with governments and other partners to ensure the highest attainable level of health for all people.

WHO strives to combat diseases – infectious diseases like influenza and HIV and noncommunicable ones like cancer and heart disease. It helps mothers and children survive and thrive so they can look forward to a healthy old age. It ensures the safety of the air people breathe, the food they eat, the water they drink – and the medicines and vaccines they need.

Source: http://www.who.int/about/en/