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3. Current situation
HABE Liburutegia is now a specialist
public library with collections of 25,000 monographs, 600 periodical publications and
numerous videos, CDs, CD-ROMs, etc. that can be accessed directly by users. The library is
managed (cataloguing, loans, purchases, periodical publications control) using a computer
programme that has been specifically designed for libraries: Absys Integrated
Library Management System.
Over the last 5-6
years, a significant amount of work has been put into creating the infrastructure required
to maximise use of the library. This has included the cataloguing of all of the
collections, creation of a documentary database of articles (called ADBD). Access
to all this information has been made possible from the HABE Website (http://www.habe.org).
The ADBD articles database
deserves special mention, as it allows access to information from 65,000 articles on
applied linguistics that can be found in the library. These articles were extracted from
165 journals and around 2,000 books.
It is common
knowledge that students and researchers face enormous difficulties trying to access and
control the wealth of articles published every year in technical and scientific
publications. This database was designed to help researchers access this vast amount of
information and to allow them to control it.
As well as providing basic information
on each article, the ADBD database also provides us with a synopsis or, where this
is unavailable, with the beginning of each article. There are three ways of searching or
entering a query:
Author/s or
keyword/s search, using the usual Booleans and entering dates to limit the search.
Search of the
indexes of all the volumes or numbers of the 165 journals from which articles were
extracted.
Free-text
search. This search mode allows users to access authors, title words and the entire
synopsis of each article. Thus, this strategy requires the user to enter more search
criteria.
Both the general
on-line catalogue and the documentary database of articles allow access to the
librarys collections from a distance., which is, in fact, the ultimate aim of these
projects.
The library now has 3,000 users and is
used mainly by: teachers and students of Euskera, English, French, German,
Spanish...; university students; university lecturers; individuals preparing their
doctoral thesis; individuals preparing for civil service examinations, etc.
The library has a
workforce of four staff, although an outside company specialising in cataloguing takes
care of the cataloguing of new documents. Our work involves: managing acquisitions (2,000
per year), subscriptions (300 journals at present), loans (1,500 per month); entering data
into the database by scanning and OCRing indexes and abstracts; creating and distributing
digital catalogues and bulletins, bibliographical assistance, following up requests,
guided visits, etc...
4.
Services
Lending
- Lending service. Users can take out
three books at a time for a three week period. This period can be renewed for a further
three weeks if the books have not been reserved.
A
distance-lending service is available for users in Bilbao and Vitoria. The library uses
HABEs regional offices in these cities to allow users from these areas to take out
and return books they have requested beforehand from the library, without their having to
travel to San Sebastián.
Interlibrary
lending service. This is common practice amongst university and specialist libraries, as
well as those of research associations and bodies, whose purpose is to exchange
photocopies of articles and books available for loan.
News bulletins and catalogues
Since the start of the year 2000, we
have been distributing a news bulletin and a number of catalogues - videos, journals,
software, theses using a distribution list. As a result, over 500 subscribers
currently receive an e-mail containing the librarys bibliographical information.
This means a substantial saving in both time and money. Users who are interested in
receiving these e-mails can ask us directly to subscribe them to the bulletins or they can
subscribe or unsubscribe from the list themselves by simply sending a blank message to:
habe-liburutegia-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
This distribution list also allows us to
store all the bulletins we have sent on the Internet. These can be consulted at any time
by the subscribers. |