Information
Products and Services Department
Increasing the availability of information and
the awareness of information sources
The Information Products and Services Department implements a programme
designed to address the key problems in ACP countries in providing information
products and services. These problems include:
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poor access to publications and information supporting decision-making
in agricultural and rural development;
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lack of published information in this field because of weak
local publishing infrastructures;
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limited awareness of sources of national and external information
and of the types of products and services available.
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To tackle these problems, the Department has set two objectives:
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to increase the availability of information;
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to improve awareness of sources of information
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The strategies to achieve these objectives focus mainly on:
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greater use of information and communication technologies (ICTs)
in publishing and disseminating information by developing Internet
products, CD-ROMs, e-publishing and e-distribution;
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greater involvement of ACP authors and publishers;
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more focus of publications on policies and decision-making
relating to priority information themes in agricultural and
rural development;
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integrating the Publications Distribution Service (PDS) and
the Dissemination of Reference Books on Agriculture;
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continued decentralisation of the Question-and-Answer Service
(QAS) and the Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) service.
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These strategies are implemented through the following activities:
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Print publishing. This involves CTA's own technical and institutional
publications and its co-publications, all of which feature in the
Publications Catalogue. The technical publications cover the
activities of other departments (e.g. seminar proceedings and study
visit reports). The institutional publications include the Annual
Report and the magazine Spore/Esporo. Co-publishing enables
CTA to expand its publications list and provide support to ACP authors
and publishers.
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Electronic publishing and ICT-based information services. The
CTA Website gives an overall view of the Centre and its activities
in e-format, and provides electronic versions of CTA publications,
including the Annual Report and Spore/Esporo. CTA is
conducting studies on ICT-based information services in order to promote
the optimal use of these services in ACP countries. It also produces
and distributes information packs for radio broadcasts as part of
its Rural Radio Programme.
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Distribution of publications. The Publications Distribution
Service (PDS) is in charge of distributing publications on CTA's list,
Spore/Esporo and agricultural reference books. The PDS also
carries out promotional activities to keep its subscribers (+/-30,000)
well informed of the availability of the publications on CTA's list.
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Decentralisation of CTA information services. This involves
the Question-and-Answer Service (QAS), the Selective Dissemination
of Information (SDI) service and the CD-ROM/Internet database service.
The QAS is being devolved to centres in ACP regions, and the SDI and
CD-ROM/Internet services are being integrated into this process.
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