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On September 20-23, 2004 the 9th ICML will take place in Bahia, Brazil. Preliminary details of the scientific programme are now available and are set out below. Full details of the conference and of the extraordinary town of Salvador where it is taking place, can be found at www.icml.org <www.icml.org> . The congress is set to be a notable and unmissable event for both the professional and the social programmes, and on behalf of the organisers I very much hope that we will see as many of you in Salvador as we did in London five years ago. Tony McSean Co-Chair, 9ICML International Committee Panel 1 - How to achieve information for all? The Organizations for International Cooperation on development and the authorities and the civil society from developing countries agree that the use of appropriate scientific and technical information and knowledge is essential for development as well as for the overcome of social inequities, particularly in health; some barriers that at present new technologies have to ensure an equity access to public or to different users; Costs of information sources development: for providers and for users; Benefits of new technologies for providers and users Panel 2 - Health related decision: how to balance evidence and democracy? Decisions related to health, involve and affect individuals, communities and societies. Scientific knowledge is an accumulative process that evolves continuously bringing evidences to support decision making process. Is there a contradiction between evidence-based policies and public participation in the decision making process? How to balance the use of the scientific evidence with the active participation of individuals, communities and societies? Panel 3 - eHealth and ePatient: a new health culture? Information technologies, for many years have been supporting most of the process related to health planning, promotion, research, education, communication and, with more public impact, health care. The recent increase in the usage of devices, procedures and communication on health processes will change the way health is perceived and cared? Is possible to measure the social impact of the information technologies? Evaluating the impact of information technologies on the level of knowledge the population has on its health. Panel 4 - Scientific Communication - Open access The structure of scientific communication, after the emergence and predominance of the Internet information and communication paradigm, has been remodeled in all aspects. Electronic publication of journals is now obligatory as it provides extraordinary possibilities to add value to the contents increasing radically speedy of publication, visibility, access, searching, linking, evaluating, etc. The provision of universal access offered by Internet and the character of the scientific research and knowledge has also created the open access movement that favors the free access to scientific knowledge. This movement is being implemented in several ways, including open access journals, open archive initiatives, repositories, etc. Panel 5 - Health Libraries Health libraries have been changing in the last years as the focus of information management moves rapidly to access to remote collections of information sources instead of management of local paper based collections. The intermediation activities will prevail and will demand libraries to operate services and activities in two dimensions for their community of users: first, provide efficient access to remote contents, and, second, provide efficient mechanisms to publish local contents. If in the Internet paradigm continuous navigation is the fate and the destiny of all of us, aren't the health Libraries the compass that we need to survive? Panel 6 - Information technologies - empowering user to publish and to access Information technologies around Internet are boosting the operation of information sources in the Internet. In one side, it gives the power of publishing to every institution and individual that has access to Internet, which will contribute to a constant increase in the availability of new contents. On the other side, sophisticated mechanisms and procedures are expected to be developed in the coming years to empower users to retrieve the proper and in context information. Contributed papers The following 10 tracks were defined for the contributed papers: Track 1- Health and Medical library development and innovations Track 2 - Decision based on scientific evidences Track3 - Information and knowledge management. Learning organizations Track 4 - Information policy Track 5 - Scientific communication & electronic publishing. Open access, open archives Track 6 - Health consumers & patients Track 7 - Traditional and complementary therapies Track 8 - Virtual libraries & virtual communities