THE DATA BANKS OF THE GENERAL

THE DATA BANKS OF THE GENERAL
DIRECTION OF UNAM LIBRARIES

Los Bancos de Datos de la Direccion General
de Bibliotecas de la UNAM

Filiberto Felipe Martinez Arellano and Alejandro Ramirez N.

General Direction for Libraries
National Autonomous University of Mexico
México, DF, México

The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is the largest and most important institution of higher learning in our country. It has 869,894 students, (UNAM, 1989a, p. 27) taught by 25,619 professors, (UNAM, 1989b). Within our university there are 3,179 research projects (UNAM, 1989d) carried out by 2,756 researchers, (UNAM, 1989a, p. 62), representing 45% of the research done in the country (UNAM, 1989c).

To support these academic activities we have a library system, which, given the character-istics of our university, can also be considered the largest library system that exists in any Mexican institution of higher learning, since it consists of 168 libraries located in the different Schools, Colleges, Centers and Institutes that compose our largest university.

This library system is coordinated by the General Direction of Libraries (Dirección General de Bibliotecas), which is responsible "for the technical processing of the materials acquired by the libraries and for maintaining a system of information regarding those library collections". (UNAM, 1990)

In order to have an information system describing the existing bibliographic and periodical holdings in each of our libraries, three large data banks have been designed and created: LIBR-UNAM, where all the books that exist in the library are registered; SERIUNAM, which is a union catalogue of the serials acquired by the university; and TESIUNAM, which consists of informa-tion related to the theses and dissertations presented by students of our institution, as well as those presented in certain private universities affiliated with the UNAM.

This data bank was created in 1978 with the principal aim of facilitating the processes of cata-loging and classifying the materials acquired by the UNAM libraries. This is accomplished in a centralized fashion.

LIBRUNAM is an acronym formed by the word LIBRO (the Spanish word for "book") and the initials of our university (UNAM). It is a name that provides an easily understood description of this data bank.

The LIBRUNAM Data Bank is the basic foundation upon which all the cataloguing activities take place. The volume of titles catalogued annually has risen from 75,000 titles in its initial year to 100,000 this year.

Its integration was accomplished by uniting all the existing records in the union catalogue of the UNAM libraries until 1977, and has been increased with the titles catalogued annually. It now consists of approximately 450,000 records, which correspond to nearly 2,000,000 existing volumes in the libraries.

For the storage of information, the Anglo-American cataloguing rules and the MARC format are used. Certain modifications have been made to accommodate our own needs.

LIBRUNAM is a Data Bank of vital importance for the rapid and timely processing realized in a centralized manner by the General Direction of Libraries, thus avoiding unnecessary duplica-tion of work and taking advantage of an optimal use of resources. 60% of the material acquired by the libraries already exist in this Data Bank, thus necessitating only the reproduction of the existing cards. The other 40% of materials acquired are catalogued and become part of the Data Bank. Therefore, the annual growth averages about 30,000 titles.

Although LIBRUNAM essentially supports the activities of cataloguing, it was designed as

a complete system for the storage, processing and retrieval of information. Thus, its usefulness extends to other areas of reference services such as "on-line searches: and the creation of biblio-graphies.

Information can be retrieved by using key words contained in the following fields:

In addition, it is possible to obtain recovery of random (LIBRE) information, that is, it is possible to search for a word irregardless of its location in the bibliographic record.

Another unique characteristic of this Data Bank is its phonetic recovery, by which it is pos-sible to access information in those cases where two signs have the same sound, as in "b" and "v". (Although these two letters have different sounds in English, they have the same sound in Spanish). This permits the recovery of information, even if the user made a mistake in the spelling of the word.

This Data Bank primarily supports the library activities of the UNAM, but given the similar-ities of our academic functions and programs with those of other institutions of higher education in the country, in 1980 a copy of the Data Bank was made in COM and distributed to those institu-tions that solicited it.

The usefulness of this Bank as an aid to cataloguing activities if quite evident. A study was done in which, 440 titles belonging to 18 different universities were selected. A search was made in LIBRUNAM, and 66% were found (294 titles).

With the appearance and application of optical system technology in libraries to copy and store great quantities of information, a compact disk was made in 1988 that contained all the information of our Data Bank. At that time 400,000 titles were included. This permitted the great majority of libraries of our universities to have access to the largest library collection in the coun-try. They can utilize it at a very low cost for library services, such as the selection, cataloguing, and classification of materials, or as a source for the elaboration of bibliographies.

Currently a project is underway to bring the LIBRUNAM compact disk up to date. This project should be finished by the beginning of November. It will contain nearly 450,000 titles, including references to the libraries where they can be found.

SERIUNAM is an acronym formed by the word SERIE (series) and the initials of the uni-versity. It is the name that has been given to the union catalogue that deals with the serial publi-cations acquired by the UNAM libraries, whether by subscriptions or by donations.

Currently this Data Bank provides us with information covering the 15,000 serial titles that exist in the 168 UNAM libraries. It is very useful for the academic community, because it enables the users to identify the location of every volume and title of the journals and magazines that they need to realize their activities.

The recording and coding of the information in this data bank was performed using the norms of the ISDS (International Serial Data System).

The design of the retrieval programs was based upon the attempt to anticipate every possible alternative that a user could utilize in a search for information. Therefore, 14 options were design-ed to recover the records for each title. These options cover practically every possible problem or need a user might have.

The points of access by which the user can recover the information are the following:

In the previous types of recovery, it is possible to locate a record regardless of the order in which the words are found. But, if a strict retrieval of information is required, that is, a respect for the word order when one is searching for a chain of words, there are two alternatives.

As was previously mentioned, the needs of the user were an essential element in the design of this data bank. Therefore, in the recovery of holdings, different possibilities of searches were taken into account.

To find out which volumes and numbers of each title existed in the different libraries, the following alternatives are available:

DEP Permits the user to know which dependencies or libraries possess a certain title.

ACE Permits the user to know the total number of holdings of a certain title in all the libraries that possess it.

AVN This option is utilized when the user wants to know which library possesses a certain year, volume or number of a serial.

It is important to point out that by means of this option, it is not necessary to include all the data, just that which is available. Of course, the greater amount of data provided permits greater precision in the search.

This Data Bank was made available to the academic community at the beginning of the cur-rent year. It will be kept totally up-to-date on line by means of the local network of minicomputers that are being placed in the UNAM and which will be mentioned later.

Just like the previous two data banks, its name is formed by an acronym describing the type of material it contains plus the initials of the institution. In this case, it deals with the Theses and dissertations (tesis) presented in the National Autonomous University of Mexico, as well as those presented in certain private universities, whose programs of study and degrees are officially recog-nized by the UNAM.

TESIUNAM was begun in 1980. It currently has 131,000 bibliographical records which include the following data:

It was the beginning of the 1970's when the University began contemplating the possibility of using computers as tools for the area of Library Science. Computers were considered to be efficient machines for handling large volumes of data.

The safety, coherence, and rapid access available through computer science necessitated the union of computers and libraries.

The starting point of the automation of the UNAM libraries was a thesis presented in 1975 entitled An Automated System for the Technical Processing of Book Acquisitions.(Sistema Auto-matizado se Adquisiciones y Procesos Técnicos de Libros). It was implemented using the equip-ment of the Center of Computer Services. In spite of the mistakes made due to the lack of research and lack of experience, it was possible to demonstrate the benefits and scope of the implementation of this type of system. Based on this experience, the General Direction of Libraries began a formal project to implement a data bank that would contain all the information regarding the bibliographi-cal holdings of the University: LIBRUNAM. This project was performed by the B-6700 compu-ter system of the Center of Computer Services.

Based on the analysis of our manual processes, 19,000 lines of coding were designed and programmed. These included a data base manager and a user control system, since no commercial systems existed at that time with the sufficient capacity needed for the LIBRUNAM.

Two years after having implemented the LIBRUNAM system and based on the benefits that it provided, the TESIUNAM project was started. This was a data bank to cover the information of the theses and dissertations presented by the graduating students. TESIUNAM could be imple-mented more rapidly, and quickly arrived at 30,000 records using the computer system B-6700.

These information banks slowly gained more importance, as the number of records increased as well as user demand.

Nevertheless, the General Direction of Libraries was just one of the many users of the equip-ment of the Center of Computer Sciences. This produced an ever slower return time as well as growing problems in the storage of information. For these reasons the General Direction of Li-braries decided to buy its own computer system. Considering the need to handle efficiently truly large volumes of data and the expectations of an accelerated growth in the future, it was decided to buy a computer system with "point: technology, specialized in data banks: a Britton Lee IDM 500 whose data base manager was not a program. Rather, it was circuit wired to increase the speed of user return time. To store the information banks, Winchester magnetic disks were purchased. These provided the highest quality and the greatest security for the data. A minicomputer AM 1042 E was also purchased to provide improved service for users. The processed information was transferred to the new system using magnetic tapes. At the same time, the systems were repro-grammed to adapt the data to other formats, the Basic Alpha language and IDL (Intelligent Data Language).

With this new equipment, the General Direction of Libraries was able to update the data banks with greater speed as well as to provide solutions to other problems. One of the more im-portant functions was to control the bibliographical material loaned out to users. Another was to maintain control over the budget expenditures in the purchase of books.

Another minicomputer AM was purchased to double the capacity for the users of the Britton Lee and to facilitate the development of systems to implement solutions to the problems previously described. Those systems are now operating, with 2.7 Gigabytes on disk.

The libraries are spread out over the entire university campus and benefit from receiving ac- cess to the data banks of the General Direction of Libraries. So that all the libraries could consult these data banks, a communication system connected to an AM 1042 was installed.

Modems of 1200 BPS (Hayes Standard) were connected. In this way, the libraries just needed a telephone line, an economical modem, and a computer (even a PC would do) to obtain information from the data banks.

In order to correct certain inconveniences it was resolved that the General Direction of Libraries would possess a TELEPAC module (the communication system of the Communication and Transportation Secretariat). This would permit communication with remote locations. A multiplexor DLT with X.25 protocol was purchased. It currently has 8 ports for communication with TELEPAC and REDUNAM.

The number of channels in the communication system of the General Direction of Libraries was (and will be) finite. Given the increasing demand for information, a response was imple-mented for access to LIBRUNAM. About 400,000 records (which represent the complete library holdings of the UNAM) were copied onto a compact disk, using CD-ROM technology. This greatly increased the number of possible users of LIBRUNAM.

With this system a telephone hook-up is no longer necessary. Neither are there problems dealing with over saturation of channels for those who use LIBRUNAM on optical disk. The disk reader can be connected to any personal computer and is not limited to LIBRUNAM. It can also be used to consult other information banks.

On the other hand, regarding on line consultation, the SERIUNAM data bank was developed and installed. This contains information regarding the serial publications owned by the university. At the same time a module was programmed to service the needs of external users which would permit them to have access to the data banks of the General Direction of Libraries, to a directory of UNAM libraries and to an electronic mail system.

During the current year, the libraries that lacked certain equipment have received it. They have also received LIBRUNAM on compact disk and a communication program developed by the General Direction of Libraries which facilitates their access and recovery of information in the already mentioned banks. It should be mentioned that a circulation program adaptable to the needs and policies of each library was also provided.

In addition, the 1990 edition of the LIBRUNAM compact disk, with up to date information has been produced. Besides the new records that have been added to the bank since the previous edition, this version has been substantially augmented. The records show which libraries possess the material. This permits the user of the compact disk to consult directly the needed material. On this occasion LIBRUNAM will be presented as a set of compact disks.

Each of the UNAM libraries is receiving computer equipment consisting of a personal micro-computer, and automatic response modem, an optical disk reader, and a printer.

Using this equipment as a reception center, the goal is to establish a local network to have access to these Data Banks. Currently, this equipment has more than 35 dependencies.

The libraries will be able to make access to these Data Banks available to their academic com-munities. Library services will then undergo a major transformation.

The three data banks that the General Direction of UNAM Libraries have created, given the magnitude of the information that they contain, are of great importance for the support they provide to the academic activities of our institution. They also serve a large number of other institutions of higher learning in our country.

Using the technology of compact disks, these Banks will be available, within a short time, to all those institutions in our country, in Latin America, or in other regions of the world that desire them.

Especially in the situation of the Mexican and Latin American libraries, these Data Banks can be of great help for the realization of some of the their activities, such as the selection, the acquisi-tion, the cataloguing, and reference services, as well as the production of catalogue cards and bibliographies.

On the other hand, the implementation of a local network among the libraries of the National Autonomous University of Mexico opens new perspectives concerning the organization of library activities and services that are provided to the academic community. Therefore, a total change in the focus of library services can be expected.

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