The Virtual Science Library (VSL) Open Portal is a free gateway providing access to a wide range of research publications and databases. Virtual Science Library program was created by CRDF, an independent non-profit organisation which aims to support and strengthen Research and Development (R&D) through collaborating with research institutions in the regions by offering grants, technical resources and services. 

Virtual Science Library interface

The VSL Open interface has an ocean scenic view as the background and allows users to carry out simple and advanced searches and also to browse the collections. The search function searches through books, journals and databases collections, and the user is given an option to choose in which collection they intend to search from.

This is made possible by the use of LibHub, which facilitates a single interface to discover and access the institution subscribed to and recommended information sources. In this way VSL Open eliminates the need for users to learn and master the search functionality of each publisher and database.

Agriculture Subject Coverage

The Virtual Science Library covers a wide range of subjects from Arts to Sciences. Agriculture is one of the subjects covered with the following subthemes Aquaculture and Fisheries, Forestry, Plant Culture, Wildlife and hunting ,Veterinary Science and General agriculture. Some of the agricultural databases linked to this platform are FAOLEX and AGRICOLA. There are 238 agricultural journal titles that are searchable via VSL Open and most of them are aggregated from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

VSL Open simplifies access by providing easy-to-use, one-window searching of over 3 million articles from open-access journals, research repositories and databases from research institutions. VSL Open is a good example of how search functionality can be improved through aggregating content in one interface.

Visit http://mvslopen.org/libhub?func=search&language=en for more information.