The construction and development of the Virtual Library of Indigenous Peoples (VLIP) is under the strategy that BIREME proposes for the promotion of technical cooperation in information to and between Latin American and Caribbean countries, with the aim of responding organized and efficiently to the emerging needs of countries that produce and operate online sources of information on health.

The Virtual Library of Indigenous Peoples is conceived as a distributing database of scientific and technical knowledge on indigenous peoples, traditional medicine, and inter-culturality; filed, organized, and stored in electronic form in the countries of the region and accessed universally on the internet in a manner consistent with international databases.

VLIP is a virtual space on the internet formed by a collection/network of various sources of information on health throughout the region. Users of different levels and places can interact in and navigate the space in one or more of the numerous sources of information regardless of physical location. These information sources are generated, updated, stored, and managed by producers, collaborators, and intermediaries in a decentralized manner using common methodologies for their contributions to the VLIP.

Information sources for the VLIP are information products and/or services in the topics of indigenous peoples, traditional medicine, and inter-culturality which are classified in six different types:

1. Fuentes de información clásica
2. Publicaciones electrónicas
3. Instrumentos multimediales
4. Servicios de 'Push'/Diseminación Selectiva de Información en pueblos indígenas medicina tradicional y interculturalidad
5. Noticias y listas de discusiones sobre el área de información en pueblos indígenas medicina tradicional y interculturalidad nacional e internacional
6. Componentes integradores de la BVPI