Bibliotecas y tecnologías sociales

Abstract

This article examines some of the ways in which the Biblioteca Daniel Cosío Villegas of El Colegio de México is responding to meet the goals stated in the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México's 1997-2000 Development Plan. The Plan aims to prepare students for life-long learning by teaching them reasoning and questioning skills as well as competencies in selecting, organizing and processing information from diverse systems and sources. It notes the need to discover the skill library professionals must have in order to assist patrons effectively to become self-sufficient users of information. The environment examined is one where most college and university students are products of a very traditional primary and secondary educational system that emphasizes learning through the use of class lectures and assigned textbooks rather than research and self-discovery. The author points out the need for library professionals in Mexico's institutions of higher education to teach students how to learn to access and process information themselves in order to transform this information into knowledge they can use. Some of the administrative changes made at the Biblioteca Daniel Cosío Villegas to accomplish this are described. These include: more participation by library professionals in planning; favoring matrical organization between departments and projects and making decisions in a more collegial fashion; subject specialization by library professionals who select, catalog, classify and give service in a specific area; and incorporation of the user into the evaluation of existing processes and services and the creation of new ones which favor a more efficacious development of their information skills. The author concludes by proposing three basic principles to guide the re-engineering process that must be undertaken by academic libraries if they are to survive and seek to shape the future of information technology rather than just responding to the challenges it presents. These principles are: the value which accrues to information by transforming it into knowledge can be analyzed systematically; the value which accrues to technology is incremented by the degree to which it is accepted by library professionals and users; and this acceptance is a function of other variables which can be understood and controlled, especially the frequency of use resulting in the development of information skills. The improvement of information skills of library professionals and users there-fore constitutes the principal objective of technological integration. (Abstract written by Debora Rougeux.). © 1999 by The Haworth Press, Inc.