The AIDS Education Global Information System (AEGiS) was conceived in the mid-1980s, as a global informational response to the global AIDS pandemic. This pandemic has spread more rapidly than any other disease in medical history, accounting for over 34.3 million infections, 18.8 million deaths, and the orphaning of 13.2 million children by the end of 1999.

The mission of AEGiS is two-fold. First, and foremost, is the humanitarian delivery of current information to those in need. For many persons living with HIV or AIDS, access to timely, correct information about treatment advances, drug interactions and other important issues relating to HIV infection and AIDS, can literally mean the difference between life and death. To accomplish the delivery of information, AEGiS uses both a web site and an email list server, the latter to reach those not having access to the World Wide Web.

Second, is to preserve for all eternity a complete and full documentation of how humanity, at the end of the 20th century, and into the next millennium, faced and dealt with what has been described as the worst pandemic since Biblical times in both dimension and scope. This secondary goal resulted in AEGiS being nominated by James Maytum of Valencia, Spain, to UNESCO's "Memory of the World Programme", in 1999.

AEGiS differs from other archives nominated in previous years to the UNESCO "Memory of the World Programme", in that it will not be complete until HIV/AIDS is eradicated from the face of the planet. By the end of 2000, the archive, as originally nominated, had grown to over 700,000 abstracts and/or full-text articles -- the AEGiS Millennium Collection.

HIV/AIDS continues to decimate enormous portions of the human species, an no cure is in sight. Because of this, AEGiS is committed to the continued archiving of information related to the pandemic.

AEGiS is unique in a number of ways:

• First, AEGiS is a library of current treatment information, changing daily as it keeps in step with medical and scientific advances.
  
  
• Second, it is a archive documenting the history of the pandemic.
  


• The initial archive -- the AEGiS Millennium Collection -- is the focus of this nomination. It is an anthology of humanities response to the AIDS pandemic at the end of the 20^th century.
  


• A second archive, which will be submitted to UNESCO, sometime in the future, will provide 21^st century coverage.
  


• A seamless interface will be provided that will allow cybernauts to search each archive individually or together, depending on the needs of the user.
  


• Finally, AEGiS is unique in that the entire accumulated knowledge base is totally searchable by any cybernaut from any location on the face of the planet.

Name of the Documentary Heritage:

AIDS Education Global Information System

Country: United States

State, Province or Region: California

Address:

AIDS Education Global Information System
Sisters of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary
32302 Alipaz St., Sp. 267
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
TeL: 949.248.5843; FAX: 949.248.2839

E-mail: webmaster@aegis.org
Web Site: http://www.aegis.org/

Name of Institution:

AIDS Education Global Information System (hereinafter, AEGiS)

• Category of ownership: nonprofit --501c(3) tax-exempt-- charitable and educational corporation.
  


• Details of legal and administrative provisions for the preservation to the documentary heritage:

  AEGiS is a non-profit 501c(3) tax-exempt charitable and educational corporation committed to the preservation of the history of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Information is stored on computer, with permanent backup on tape, CD-ROM, and DVD.

• Accessibility: The collection is freely accessible via the world wide web at http://www.aegis.org/

• Copyright status: AEGiS and the Sisters of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary claim compilation copyright on the archive. Individual copyrights remain with the originator of each article. Policy from inception has been to freely share archived materials with other non-profit entities and/or individuals, the only stipulation being that the information cannot be sold for profit.

• Responsible administration:

  The parent organizations -- AEGiS and the Sisters of St. Elizabeth of Hungary -- are not-for-profit charitable, educational, and religious, corporations, established under the laws of the state of California and the United States of America.

  Both are committed to the preservation and maintenance of this global archive as a freely accessible archive via the world wide web.

• The archive currently consists of approximately 700,000 abstracts and/or full-text articles from a wide range of scientific, medical, and lay journals, including news stories from the world press pertaining to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
  



• The archive is updated daily as information is received, indexed and cross-referenced.

• The archive is fully indexed, cross-referenced, and keyword searchable via a powerful search engine.
  


• For those not comfortable in using a search engine, standard tables of contents are available for each publication area, broken down by year of publication.

Visual documentation:

• Links are provided within each article to photographs, audio, or video resources when available.

History:

Bibliography: Available on-line at http://www.aegis.org/

• Influence: The HIV pandemic has been described as the worst pandemic since Biblical times in both dimension and scope. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that nearly 34-million people worldwide have contracted HIV since the virus was first recognized, with over 18 million people having died from AIDS. An estimated 34 million people currently live with HIV, 6 million of whom contracted the virus in the last year. The archive collection documents the HIV/AIDS pandemic from the first identified case circa 1957 to the present.

• Time: The archive covers the period 1957 to the present and represents an important and unique set of primary and secondary source materials,relevant to the cultural, ethnic, political and social and economic history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

  The world AIDS pandemic is truly the most significant event in recorded history. Never has humanity had to face its own possible extermination as it does right now at the brink of the XXI Century. Zimbabwe deplores 1,200 (one thousand two hundred) AIDS deaths a week.

  http://www.aegis.org/news/ap/1999/ap990410.html

• Place: The archive provides global coverage of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
  

  AEGiS is the world depository of information published in the various media from around the planet tracing HIV, the viral infection, and AIDS, the world pandemic by incorporating as much of Humanity via the unique cultural perspectives that only "local area" media can provide when available in the Knowledge Base.

  http://www.aegis.org/news/bbc/

  http: //www.aegis.org/news/ips

  http://www.aegis.org/news/pana/1999/

• People: Information is available on a wide range of persons who have been involved in AIDS research, treatment, and activism.
  

  As a person infected with the HIV virus and living in the "developed world", I am privileged to have access to the AEGiS Knowledge Base to inform and educate myself about my own disease. That same privilege is available to every human being on our planet who has a computer capable of even just receiving Email, as another aspect of AEGiS are the Email lists that the Archives maintain to bring knowledge, data, fact and information to millions suffering in the battle against HIV/AIDS around the planet who otherwise would be left totally unaware of the latest developments in our fight, in humanity's fight, against HIV/AIDS.

  There are no magnificent architectural examples representing the importance of the AEGiS Knowledge Base, as it is run in very humble settings by the Sisters of Saint Elizabeth in San Juan Capistrano, USA, but the literally planet wide millions who have visited and a little more knowledge and information about HIV / AIDS is the finest representation of the importance and significance of the Archive.
  

• Subject/Theme: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

  The Archive exists for very specific reasons, i.e. to obtain, distribute and then archive humanity and its war against HIV/AIDS. The Archive does not "exalt" the pandemic but rather exists to educate humanity in an attempt to assist humanity in its struggle to survive.

• Form: On-line journal and news in both abstracted and full-text formats totalling nearly 700,000 files. They are available in ASCII text, HTML, and/or PDF format for reading on-line or downloading to the individual's computer for off-line reading.

• Social Value: The archive represents an important set of primary and secondary resource materials relating to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and humankind's response at the cultural, ethnic, political, and social level.

  The AEGiS Knowledge Base is a mirror reflecting mankind's current efforts against the AIDS world pandemic. It is the accumulation of as much information, data and fact that is available for current generations to use and will continue to grow and accumulate information, data and fact until the HIV / AIDS world pandemic ends, if it ever ends. The AEGiS Knowledge Base also exists to be preserved for future generations to study mankind at the end of the XX th Century and its responses and lack of responses to the world HIV / AIDS pandemic. Should this accumulated documentation of humanity and its response ever be lost for future generations to study and learn from, all mankind's efforts to win the battle against AIDS will have been for nothing. The millions who have died, are dying and who will die until the "cure" is found will have died for nothing if the "memory" of what humanity has had to deal with is ever forgotten.

• Authenticity/ Rarity:

  Though most of the documents in the archive are not unique, the archive as it exists, is. The archive also documents events long lost to the general public--for example: the Congressional investigation into professional misconduct by Robert Gallo, involving the discovery of the AIDS virus.

  http://206.124.248.65/law/journals/1995/gallo001.html

  http://206.124.248.65/law/journals/1995/gallo002.html

  http://206.124.248.65/law/journals/1995/gallo003.html

• Owner: AIDS Education Global Information System.
• Custodian:

  AIDS Education Global Information System, ATTN: Reverend Mother Mary Elizabeth, SSE,32302 Alipaz St., Sp. 267, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675-4164

  Tel: 949-248-5843; Fax: 949-248-2839

• Web Site: http://www.aegis.org/
• Email: mary.elizabeth@aegis.org

• Independent institutions and experts:
• Gale Dutcher
  National Library of Medicine
  National Institutes of Health
  Bethesda, MD
  Tel: (301) 496-5082
  Fax: (301) 480-3537
  Email: gale_dutcher@nlm.nih.gov
• Captain Nancy Hazleton,
  USPHS National Institutes of Health
  Bethesda, MD; Tel: 301.496.7821;
  Email: nh53q@nih.gov
  
  

• Nominator:

  James Maytum
  c/o Jacinto Labaila, #21, Pta. 12
  46007 Valencia Spain

• Contact person:

  AIDS Education Global Information System
  ATTN: Reverend Mother Mary Elizabeth, SSE,
  32302 Alipaz St., Sp. 267,
  San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675-4164;
  Tel: 949-248-5843; Fax: 949-248-2839.

  Web Site: http://www.aegis.org/
  Email to: mary.elizabeth@aegis.org

• Documents are backed up on CDROM and magnetic tape. Insofar as new information is continually being added to the archive, backups are updated weekly and stored offsite in a bank safety deposit box.

• Documents are in good condition, stored electronically on magnetic disk, tape, and CDROM.