Challenges and opportunities in the automation of large public libraries: A Mexican experience
| Published date | 01 March 1998 |
| Pages | 175-176 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045634 |
| Date | 01 March 1998 |
| Author | Alejandro Leal Cueva |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
FOCUS
article
Library
Automation
Challenges
and
opportunities
in
the automation
of
large public
libraries:
a
Mexican experience
Alejandro Leal Cueva
email:aleal@ccr.dsi.uanl.mx
This
is a
brief account
of the
successes
and
failures encountered over
the
last twelve years
of
working
in
library automation
in a
large university institution
in the
Northeast
of
México, together with
a
sketch
of
future
perspectives.
The Universidad Autonóma
de
Nuevo León
(www.uanl.mx)
is the
third largest public university
in
México, with over
one
hundred thousand students
and fifteen hundred employees.
It is
located
in the
state capital, Monterrey,
a
city with
a
population
of
four million.
Fifteen years
ago the
university realized
it
needed
to
automate
its
library system,
and
since that time var-
ious efforts have been made
in
that direction.
At
the
beginning there were three different trends,
the biggest central library
(at
that time) "Capilla
Alfonsina" started
to use a
royalty free small system
called "Siabuc", promoted
by the
Ministry
of
Education.
The
schools
of
Medicine
and
Economy
started
to
develop their own automated systems,
but
only the medical school looked to develop in line with
an international standard, such
as
the MARC format.
A
few
years later
the
main authorities
at the
University decided
to
invest
in one
unique solution
for
all the
libraries
—
sixty four
in
number
at
that
time.
People from
the
library
and
system sections
fwere named leaders
of the
project
(www.uanl.mx/proabi).
Library experiences
in the use of
Siabuc were dis-
appointing because
of the
lack
of
support
and
fre-
quent loss
of
information. Expertise
was
gained,
but
with time
it
became evident that this was
a
time-con-
suming option
— and in
publicly-managed institu-
tions,
where
the
main authorities change frequently
(and with them interest, investment
and
politics),
time
is not a
very abundant resource.
Therefore
the
team concentrated
in
looking
to buy a
ready-to-use solution, starting from regional, nation-
al
and,
finally, international systems
for
library
automation, finishing with
a
study
to
select from
three main vendors: Innovative Interfaces, VTLS
and
Dynix.
In the end, and
after
a
very exhaustive analy-
sis,
VTLS
was
selected.
At
the
beginning
of 1993, the
institution finally
bought
all the
hardware, software
and
paid
the
first
annual maintenance
fee. We
started implementing
the VTLS system
in
seven servers (HP9000) across
the rapidly growing university communication net-
work. Also
a
great effort
was put
into educating
librarians
to use the
system.
By 1994,
we had all the
servers
up and
running with
at least
one
library using
the
system,
and
with
two
other libraries sharing
a
point
of
access.
DOS and
Windows clients were installed
to
make
the
interface
more attractive
and
easy
to use.
In
the
meantime,
the
system created
at the
medical
school was revised
and
installed in twenty small high
school libraries
as a way to
promote familiarization
with automation,
and to
advance
the
cataloging
and
the creation
of
MARC files,
to be
ready
for
download
to VTLS.
A
small local company (Complise
Sistemas,
S.A. de C.V) was
contracted
to
make
all
this work.
By the
end of
1994,
the
well known political
and
eco-
nomic problems
in
Mexico made
us
understand
something that
we had not
fully realized
up
till then:
namely that this solution needed
a
considerable
investment
to
sustain
it.
Moreover,
a
considerable
fee
had to be
paid annually
to
VTLS
to
update
the
system. That
was not
such
a big
deal originally,
but
the arrival
of a
new management team,
and the
eco-
nomic crisis transformed things,
and
library develop-
ment was halted.
By
1995 we had
five Internet servers
and the
nine
biggest libraries
of the
university
had
been OPAC-
enabled.This represented more than sixty percent of
the institution's collection. People started
to use the
facilities
of the
system,
and so
middle
and end
users
started
to
feel
the
advances
in
automation.
However,
the
authorities
at the
university never paid
the annual maintenance
fee and so
VTLS support
and updating ceased.
The
in-house system team
The Electronic Library, Vol. 16, No. 3, June
1998 175
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