Rwandas National HIV & AIDS Digital Library is a collaborative initiative between the CNLS, TRAC and the MOHs division of plan. Technical assistance is provided by Tulane Universitys Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer. This digital library assembles full-text resources & other material that cover the entire range of resource types relative to its multi-sector response to HIV & AIDS. Its focus is on Rwanda-specific, gray literature.

Development of this digital library is a continuous, iterative process. It is done within the context of the 5S framework for digital libraries and what research has shown us about document usability. However, it goes beyond this by turning the library development into an organizational and human resource capacity-building intervention through the systematic application of usability criteria and organizing the resources into either a non-verified or a verified collection.

ABOUT THESE COLLECTIONS

There are currently six collections; 3 non verified and 3 verified. 

The non-verified collections contain documents and other resources that do not yet meet the librarys usability criteria. They have only been reviewed to assure that they have a title, document date and the author and/or institution which produced it.

The verified collections contain only documents and other resources that have met the librarys usability criteria. The criteria used depends upon the type of resource submitted. We have chosen to display as an example, the most rigorous usability criteria form for technical reports 

To further assist with document searches and use, in a multi-sector HIV & AIDS context, we have classified the documents by the Sector(s) to which they are related. Because a standardized list of sectors does not exist, at least not in the HIV & AIDS domain, we chose to use the list of Rwanda-specific public sector ministries as the basis for our list. Because of the cross-cutting nature of some ministries, we regrouped these under a sector we call cross-cutting.