For economic and social development, especially to support decision-making processes in the planning, formulation and application of public policies or to strengthen professional development and practice, adequate and up-to-date access to scientific and technical information is essential. One of the ways to access this information is through publications in scientific journals, which compile research results. However, in many countries, such as ours, this access encounters distribution and dissemination barriers, which limits the use of locally generated scientific information^1,2.

Considering this, in 1997, a joint cooperation between BIREME (Latin American and Caribbean Center for Health Sciences Information, also known by its original name of Regional Library of Medicine), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/World Health Organization (WHO), Fapesp (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) and scientific publishers, started SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), which since 2002, also has the support of CNPq ( National Council for Scientific and Technological Development of Brazil)³.

SciELO is an electronic resource that collects research articles from Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, México, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay), Spain, Portugal and South Africa. It functions as a publication network, each country that forms part of it is in charge of digitizing the documents produced by local scientific journals. Its objective is to increase the visibility, the condition of access and the national and international credibility of the scientific production of Latin America and the Caribbean, through the publication on the Internet of national and regional collections of scientific journals⁴.

Initially, this project included ten Brazilian journals from different areas of knowledge, achieving great success between March 1997 and May 1998, with the development and evaluation of an adequate methodology for the preparation, storage, dissemination and evaluation of scientific literature in electronic format⁵.

In Paraguay, as a result of a joint work, originated during the ninth Paraguayan Congress of Pediatrics in October 2004, between the Paraguayan Society of Pediatrics, the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the National University of Asunción, the National Institute of Health, dependent of the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare, the Pan American Health Organization and the Health Sciences Research Institute of the National University of Asunción, the SciELO Paraguay initiative emerged⁶.

On October 2, 2007, three years after starting the project and intense efforts by scientific leaders, the "Act of Commitment for the development of the SciELO Paraguay initiative" was signed in the auditorium of the Health Sciences Research Institute of the National University of Asunción, an event in which officials and representatives of scientific institutions of Paraguay participated, such as the Paraguayan Academy of Medicine, the Paraguayan Society of Pediatrics, the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the UNA, representatives of the Council National of Science and Technology, the National Institute of Health, the Central Laboratory of Public Health, representatives of the Pan American Health Organization Paraguay and General Directors of the National University of Asunción, among others⁷. At this meeting, the first SciELO Paraguay Consultative Committee was formed and the Health Sciences Research Institute of the National University of Asunción was designated as the Coordinating Center of SciELO Paraguay^6,8.

The SciELO Paraguay collection began with three national scientific journals in the area of health: Memorias of the Health Sciences Research Institute, Anales of the Faculty of Medical Sciences and Pediatría; it currently includes twenty titles in different subject areas⁹.

Thus, since then, SciELO Paraguay became the first digital repository that Paraguayan researchers have to publish the results of their work through the collection of scientific journals that comprise it.

It should be noted that since July 2019, SciELO Paraguay has been certified as a member of the SciELO Regional Network, becoming part of the collection together with other countries⁹.

Currently, the journals that make up the SciELO-Paraguay collection covers all areas of knowledge, prevailing topics related to health, and are the following: Academo (Asunción), Anales de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas (Asunción), Cirugía Paraguaya, Compendio de Ciencias Veterinarias, Investigación Agraria, Medicina Clínica y Social, Memorias del Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Salud (IICS-UNA), Pediatría (Asunción), Población y Desarrollo, Reportes Científicos de la FACEN, Revista Científica Ciencias de la Salud, Revista Científica de la UCSA, Revista de la Secretaría del Tribunal Permanente de Revisión, Revista de la Sociedad Científica del Paraguay, Revista de Salud Pública del Paraguay, Revista del Instituto de Medicina Tropical. Revista del Nacional (Itauguá), Revista Internacional de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales, Revista Paraguaya de Reumatología and the Revista Virtual de la Sociedad Paraguaya de Medicina Interna¹⁰.

On August 2, 2022, the Scientific Electronic Library Online Paraguay reached 15 years of regular and uninterrupted operation in our country, even despite the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In order to commemorate this important date for science, the coordinating institution of the virtual library (the Health Sciences Research Institute of the National University of Asunción), held an act of remembrance and recognition of the main promoters of SciELO Paraguay, in which academic authorities, representatives of different institutions and prominent scientific leaders of the country participated¹¹.

In this event, the importance of this platform was highlighted, which allows full, open, free and open access to publications of our researchers. In addition, recognitions were given for their contributions to Prof. Dr. Hassel Jimmy Jiménez, head of the chair of pediatrics at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the National University of Asunción and former editor of the journal Pediatria, for being a promoter of the initiative SciELO Paraguay; to Prof. Dr. Jorge Hernán Rodas, President of the Paraguayan Circle of Physicians and former Director General of IICS-UNA, for his support and promotion of the site, to the Pan American Health Organization-Paraguay for the support for the creation and advancement of SciELO Paraguay and BSc. Felicita Torales, librarian at IICS-UNA, for her invaluable work in maintaining and advancing the library.

After 15 years of this initiative, the commitment to promote the right to scientific information, in full text and free and open access, in pursuit of academic and editorial excellence of the scientific publications of our researchers is reaffirmed. Our next objective is the incorporation of new titles to the library's collection in other thematic areas, without neglecting the theoretical and methodological quality of the articles contained in the journals.

SciELO Paraguay is available at the site http://scielo.iics.una.py/?lng=es.