Virtual Health Library

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.

The VHL is simulated in a virtual space of the internet formed by a collection or network of health information sources in the region.

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.