5 años cooperando en Rebisalud, la Red de Bibliotecas Virtuales de Salud

Introduction and objectives Five years after the creation of Rebisalud, the Virtual Health Libraries Network (http://www.rebisalud.org), which brings together nine autonomous virtual libraries specializing in the health sciences, a first assessment of this entity’s functioning has been made. Rebisalud’s mission is to enhance library cooperation through the coordination and development of strategies and collaborative projects, with the aim of optimizing the dissemination and exchange of information in the field of health. Nowadays, one of its main objectives is to become an interlocutor in the field of knowledge management between the different organizations with health competences. Material and methods Rebisalud coordinators carried out a SWOT analysis in order to reflect on where the network was located, both internally (weaknesses and strengths) and externally (threats and opportunities), to detect applicable points of improvements. Results Among the results of the SWOT analysis, several strengths stand out such as the fact that each of the network assembly members has autonomous representation or the possibility of jointly negotiating the contracting conditions of information resources through the sales club. Also, weaknesses such as the fact that virtual libraries have different levels of development or lack quality indicators, and threats, such as the high cost of bibliographic resources or the changing face publishing market. Finally, opportunities, such as those derived from the open science and all that this entails, from development of institutional repositories to the management of research data. Conclusions New opportunities are emerging around the health sciences libraries of health sciences which can facilitate the sharing of experiences, knowledge, and problems through a cooperation network such as Rebisalud, which enriches the quality of the different autonomic library projects. It is necessary to develop specific, reliable, validated and available indicators for all virtual health sciences libraries. Rebisalud is always open to any autonomous community virtual library that wishes to become a part of this cooperation project