I was the director of the main library at the UCA (Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas, the Central American University at San Salvador) for 21 years, until the end of 1992. I am glad to know that we can count on experienced people that have taken the lead in our projects. Human resources are extremely important.
Now I am a retired librarian, but not in a passive kind of retirement. I always keep active. The proof is in my actions, such as my presence here today. I thought it necessary to expand on some information that I have in mind, the result of my 38 years working in this profession and mainly the automation project of the UCA.
Our project was born in 1979, the same year the Salvadoran civil war started. At that time El Salvador started showing up in every World Atlas. Sadly 70,000 Salvadorans had to die so we could exist geographically. At the UCA library, following the socio-political and war happenings, we thought it necessary to file and save all that was being written about the war.
We decided, first of all, to have selective information distributed among our professors. This program had two objectives: first, to satisfy the information need of our academic community: professors and student body, and second, to give an accurate description of what was really happening, regardless of social status, political preference, etc... [Table of Contents]
We decided to review all publications coming into the library that made reference to the Civil war, especially foreign publications. Reviewing every magazine and article available and making a card reference for each one, we decided to follow the IICA (Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura, head office in Costa Rica) filing procedures, these being the more adequate and easier to use bibliographical references available, as well as frequently reviewed and universally known.
We prepared a reference card and put aside a photocopy of every article. At the present time, we have an updated Salvadorean bibliography since 1979. There are about 20 volumes of such articles, bound into volumes for public use, and a compilation for back up purposes. These volumes are recognized by a blue ribbon and are organized in alphabetical order by article title, which makes the information easily searchable. If while browsing, you come up to a volume marked with a blue ribbon and the initials BS, you have found a Salvadorean bibliography item. [Table of Contents]
The filer and reference system has served and satisfied many demands, hence proving its utility since its creation. Ideas for an automation project were born on 1986, and it became a reality in June 1991, the long delay due to the lack of trained personnel. In 1991 we started a training program for every staff member. This computer training also promoted a confidence boost among our personnel.
Later on we used an electronic data base developed in MICROISIS and finally a CEPAL format. We agreed on having our first stored data being magazine articles, the Salvadorean bibliography contained in the foreign magazines, and the university published magazines which total 9 titles. The most important title is "ECA," discussing Central American Studies. These steps helped us accomplish our main objectives: training of personnel and creating the electronic database. It is my opinion that the first thing a library should do, is create a data base of what they produce. The main reasons: foreign countries are interested in what we produce, and we should be interested in what we do. [Table of Contents]
On November 1992 I attended FIL'92 (Feria Internacional del Libro, the International Book Fair) in Guadalajara(Mexico), to participate in LATINBASE. I had the opportunity to visit the Universidad de Colima, and learn about their Latin American databases on CD-ROM. I told them about our project, and immediately they gave me a copy of their CD. This was an exchange and they expected in return the database that we had. I signed a sort of written contract where it was stipulated that I was receiving the mentioned CD as a donation from Universidad de Colima, under the sponsorship of UNESCO, and in return we were to send one megabyte of data, as a minimum requirement to be included in the next edition of the database.
Currently our Salvadoran database is on this CD-ROM, it is called UCA, and contains around 4,500 references. [Table of Contents]
[List of Papers in English]