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The Book  Download 66 pages, PDF, 1.4 MB Preface 1. BSK 2. The Amedeo Story 3. HIV.NET 4. HIV Medicine 5. Flying Publisher 6. Free Medical Information 7. Amedeo Textbook Awards Perspectives The Awards Preface Rationale Awards Rules and Conditions Application Books Exclusive Sponsorship Donations
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The Amedeo Challenge back
HIV.NET 2007 is the 15th edition of a medical textbook about HIV and AIDS and is the reference text in Germany. The Editor-in-Chief is Christian Hoffmann, who is also editor of HIV Medicine, Influenza Report, and SARS Reference. The HIV.NET story goes back to 1995. On October 27th of that year, Bernd Sebastian Kamps (BSK) undertook his very first steps on the Internet when the father of his goddaughter Charlotte, convinced him to upload an exhaustive epidemiological analysis of the European AIDS epidemic to a Compuserve server. Thrilled by this experience ("Within minutes, I made dozens of tables and figures available to whoever was connected to Compuserve and had an interest in AIDS epidemiology!"), BSK contacted a local Internet provider to rent 0.5 Megabytes of web space. At the time, BSK resided in Sardinia, a Mediterranean island thrown into the sea halfway between Europe and Africa. Ironically, although the Internet was still largely unknown in Germany, France and most other European countries at the time, a local entrepreneur in Sardinia offered Internet access at affordable prices. BSK started studying HTML, the basic programming language for Internet websites. Domain Names A month later, BSK met another German emigrant, Siegfried März, who insisted that having a small web space was not sufficient. "What you need is your own Internet domain with your own URL, for example www.xyz.com", März said. BSK immediately contacted Marc Herms, a third German expatriate, and asked him to search for available domain names in the HIV/AIDS area. That very evening, on November 22, 1995, BSK drafted guidelines detailing the kind of information that should be included in a web-based HIV and AIDS information portal, and how to finance it. He anticipated that he could convince pharmaceutical companies to sponsor his work, assuming that the content was good. Fortunately, good content was to hand in the form of the 6th edition of his medical textbook, "AIDS 1996". He founded this book in 1991 and, since 1994, had been co-editing it with Hans-Reinhard Brodt and Eilke Brigitte Helm. On December 28th, 1995, Marc Herms registered BSK's first domain name www. hiv.net. Sponsors Two months later, in February 1996, BSK contacted Thorsten Hoof, a then young marketer at Roche, and proposed a meeting to discuss the perspectives of the new Internet technology. On a cold Saturday morning, at the agency of Milan documentary film producer Dario Barone, they discussed the business model of HIV.NET. BSK offered to provide free access to the 6th "AIDS 1996" edition on his website without any restrictions, and Thorsten Hoof agreed to contribute to the website development. On March 16th, the 60th birthday of co-editor Eilke Brigitte Helm, HIV.NET went online. Later, other companies followed Roche's example and became official sponsors of the HIV.NET website (Pfizer, Pharmacia & Upjohn, GlaxoWellcome, Boehringer Ingelheim, Tibotec). In retrospect, free access to a newly updated medical textbook about HIV and AIDS may have been of particular importance in early 1996: at that very time, and for the first time since AIDS was discovered in 1981, treatment of HIV infection with recently introduced antiviral drugs showed a significant improvement in patient survival. In individual cases, the free availability of a textbook that described the new treatment modalities may have made a difference... Over the coming years, HIV.NET extended its service by offering conference reports and news about advances in the management of HIV and AIDS. However, the event of the year - of every year - was the publication of the updated edition. Since one of BSK's credos is "If people are willing to study, we should help them and do everything possible to give them free access to learning materials", he offered free access to the updated HIV textbook as early as two months after the book was available in bookstores. Today, it is the other way around: the updated chapters are available on the website months before the book even goes to print. The rationale behind this strange way of publishing is BSK's belief that a free PDF is the best publicity for a medical textbook. He later detailed this new way to conceive medical publishing at www.FreeMedicalInformation.com. The success of HIV.NET seems to prove him right.
Figure 3.1. Meeting of HIV.NET authors in Sardinia, 2004. Christian Hoffmann Following the 10th edition of the AIDS textbook, the first editorial team dispersed and no updates were published in 2001 and 2002. On November 22nd, 2000, BSK convinced Christian Hoffmann to become editor-in-chief of HIV.NET. At this time, BSK retired from all other activities in order to concentrate on the development of Amedeo, while HIV.NET focused mainly on conference reports and other news. Near the end of December 2001, Hoffmann and BSK realized that although HIV.NET provided a good news service, the underlying textbook was aging rapidly. On January 8th, 2002, they agreed to create a completely new edition of the textbook with a new team of authors. Hoffmann selected the collaborators, and the name of the 11th edition was changed to HIV.NET 2003. While the book was being printed, BSK had the main chapters translated into English, and only a few months later, on April 9th, 2003, the English edition was offered for free online access. BSK also introduced a completely new concept in medical publishing - the Copyright Removal (see the next chapter for more details).
Figure 3.2. Four of the 16 authors who attended the Sardinia 2004 meeting were marathon-experienced - an unusual prevalence. From left to right: Christian Hoffmann, Tim Niehues, Thomas Buhk; second row: Ulrich A. Walker.
In March 2007, HIV.NET 2007 celebrated its 15th edition. One of the most astonishing particulars about this book is its authors. To update a medical textbook every year supposes some degree of commitment by all parties involved in the project. As more than 30 physicians contribute to the HIV.NET textbook, one would anticipate enormous problems maintaining the yearly deadlines; however, this has never occurred. When Christian Hoffmann and BSK determine the deadline for a subsequent edition, they know that no author will deliver more than 10 days past that deadline. Regular meetings of the team decide on the future development of the book. Twice, the authors met in the isolated mountains of Sardinia (Figure 3.1 and 3.2) - an unforgettable experience with adequate quantities of strong local red wine, long-night discussions, and excellent food: lukewarm sheep's milk for breakfast; and for dinner, breast of swine, sheep's heart and goats' cheese. The culminating point of the rustic cuisine was traditional shepherd's bread with sheep blood and pecorino. The HIV.NET authors will have a life-long memory of it.
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