The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México operates 164 libraries with more than four and a half million volumes. These offer their services to a community of over 350,000 people from all levels, from high school to Ph.D. It is the largest collection of books at the service of higher education and research in México.

The DGB (La Dirección General de Bibliotecas) is in charge of coordinating this vast library system and is responsible for creating instruments which assure constant improvement in the services offered, both to the libraries as well as the users who use them. Since its creation, this office has been responsible for centralizing the procedures of acquiring, classifying, and cataloging all books. To carry out these activities in the best possible way, the LIBRUNAM data bank was created. This data bank currently contains more than 400,000 titles. It has speeded up the technical procedures as well as made it easier to locate the more than two and a half million documents contained in the bank and which are located in the different libraries of the UNAM.

LIBRUNAM also makes it possible to elaborate the bibliographies of the materials concentra-ted in the different libraries within the system.

Toward the end of 1986 we were asked by the Ministry of Public Education through its Office of Higher Education and Research to carry out a feasibility study as to the convenience of connecting the libraries of the provincial state universities to the LIBRUNAM data bank in the DGB at the UNAM.

The work was carried out by Adolfo Rodriguez and Juan Voutassas and the findings reported in March 1987. As a result it was decided that it would be necessary to carry out a pilot program with the libraries of several provincial universities. An attempt was made to prove that the means of communication that had been proposed was in fact accurate, and to confirm the fact that the ef-fort made to install a network of libraries which would benefit all the participants in the program, was worthwhile.

From the outset, we knew that the best hook-up had to be TELEPAC. We knew TELEPAC would assure quicker and more efficient communication. Unfortunately TELEPAC was saturated and the UNAM had been waiting for over a year to gain access to its lines. There had been many excuses - not enough memory in the equipment, not enough space for the connection, etc.. So, we decided to use the regular telephone line, knowing full well the problems that this would cause be-cause of the differences in quality, nationwide, in the equipment and service of Teléfonos de México.

Three universities were chosen for a two-month trial - Colima, Nuevo León, and Aguasca-lientes. The University of Zacatecas was included in the trial afterwards.

It was decided to try to make the hook-up by means of an automatic answering "modem de 1200 baudios" and the equipment for the experiment was sent by the UNAM.

The results were very different for each university. Colima was always able to communicate with LIBRUNAM whenever it wanted to and without any difficulties. Nuevo León was only able to do it either very early in the morning or after nine p.m. Since the librarians were not in the library at these times, the experiment was not at all practical. The results from the other two uni-versities were very disheartening. Aguascalientes only managed to get through once, and then only for two minutes. Zacatecas was never able to establish contact.

Toward the end of the experiment the UNAM was at last able to gain access to TELEPAC but the attempts to hook-up to LIBRUNAM were not much more encouraging than the attempts made with modem.

These results led us to search for an alternative way for the libraries to have access to data banks of the DGB.

A small network was set up in México City with 20 libraries using modem. Most of these were UNAM libraries. The Instituto Politécnico Nacional and the Colegio Madrid were interested in the experiment and were also included. Once again the results varied from library to library. Some used the hook-up on a permanent basis. Others only used it occasionally. Some were never able to get through.

It was obvious that modems were unreliable as a means of communication and that it was extremely difficult to get through to the data banks. There were even some extreme cases where it was impossible to do so due to bad connections or a drop in the voltage.

The DGB had received many requests in the previous years for the microfilms of LIBR-UNAM which had been produced in 1979 as sales or as donations. To bring these up-to-date and to publish a new edition with the almost 400,000 titles would have cost a great deal of money. It would also have been a long and difficult process to produce an instrument which may have sim-plified some technical procedures while making it more difficult to carry out other tasks such as bibliographical searches by topic. After studying the pros and cons of producing a new version of LIBRUNAM on microfilm, we reached the conclusion that the process was complicated and ex-pensive and that it offered very little possibility of using the available technology in tasks of searching. Therefore, we decided to explore the possibility of producing the data bank on CD-ROM.

First we studied the convenience of having the UNAM organize the project as well as invest in the production of the compact disk. Later we studied the possibility of having a private investor do both things. Finally it was decided that the UNAM should organize the project so as to gain experience in this area and that the production and marketing of the LIBRUNAM data bank, with all of the risks that this involved, should be left up to a private company. The CD-ROM can be described as an instrument to store very large amounts of information at a low cost, and is especi-ally useful for storing information that does not need to be brought up to date frequently, e.g. every week.

The CD-ROM is reliable and long-lasting. The problem of demagnetizing or of losing in-formation through user error is avoided and of course, no back up copies are required. The CD-ROM is the most reliable device, magnetic or optical, available today.

The work of organizing the data bank began in July 1988. It was necessary to work for a number of months in order to have the titles of the more than 400,000 books ready. The indexes used for retrieval contain more than 6,000,000 words. The project was not without its problems. At one particular point the LIBRUNAM was duplicated in the machine and all the files that were stored in our computer had to be removed. Three months later, the tapes were ready to be handed over to the company, Multiconsult, which gave them the final touches before sending them to the company in the U.S.A. which would produce the disks.

The contract, signed by the co-producer of the disk and the DGB, contained the following three important clauses:

1. The UNAM would receive free of charge 100 disks to be distributed among the different libraries within the university itself.

2. The provincial state universities which have cooperation agreements with the UNAM would receive the disks at a price no higher than $400.00 US dollars.

3. The UNAM would receive a percentage of the profits from the disk sales.

The agreement is beneficial for both parties, the UNAM and Multiconsult.

The LIBRUNAM disk proved that it was feasible to produce in Mexico, a very large data bank using this format. The main objective was to prove that we could use the latest technology to produce an instrument that would be useful in library work. Unlike some other institutions, the DGB was not out to prove that it was in the vanguard of the field. We wanted to share the data bank with all those who were interested in doing so. We are aware of the fact that the bank suffers from problems with quality and consistency and this is what held us back from going ahead with the production of CD-ROM of LIBRUNAM. On the other hand, we also know that LIBRUNAM has proven to be a very useful instrument for many smaller libraries which do not have the funds to maintain a subscription to such expensive instruments such as the National Union Catalog, nor do they have the qualified personnel who would guarantee the quality of their technical procedures.

The consultation, which was impossible previously due to an inadequate telephone system, is now possible thanks to the CD-ROM version of LIBRUNAM. We have within our reach the same options of search which a computerized system offers in the search for information. We are able to optimize the resources which the country has already invested in technical procedures. Finally, we can offer the librarians and the people who use the libraries of the provincial state universities a much wider range of possibilities of help in their work.

The second edition of LIBRUNAM CD-ROM is in the production stage and soon we will have a new data bank with 34,689 more entries than the first edition. The titles from the libraries of the UNAM have also been included and this makes it possible to locate any of the 2,500,000 books in the 164 libraries of this university. This is an important step since it will make it easier for libraries to lend books to other libraries, not only within the UNAM system but also with other university libraries or specialized libraries, in Mexico City and the rest of the country.

Other data banks of the UNAM will be produced on CD-ROM but first they must be checked and re-checked in order to be able to offer a top quality product. These banks will contain inform-ation about the theses of the different schools of the UNAM as well as other universities which depend on the UNAM legally (TESIUNAM). They will also contain the Collective Catalog of Periodical Publications of the university (SERIUNAM).

2. USE

Both types of consultation of the banks, by telephone or CD-ROM, are carried out in the Ref-erence Department of the Central Library.

The original idea was to create a multi-diciplinary collection of data banks. The first under-taking was to obtain the data banks which were near to the DGB according to specialized areas, and later on expand these areas, using information about the demand as a guide.

In October 1989, we began to offer this service, starting out with 13 data banks on CD-ROM. One year after having begun this service the number of data banks has increased consider-ably, and at the present there is a total of 28.

The following is a list of policies and procedures established for the selection and acquisition of data banks on CD-ROM:

• Find out through the Reference Department which printed indexes and abstracts were most requested.

• With the help of the Department of Selection and Acquisition gather information about each of the data banks which were to be acquired.

• Carry out a study to find which data banks offered the most benefits both for the libraries and the people who use them. In other words, find out whether the information in these banks added to, complemented or duplicated the information in the data banks which we already had.

• Find out whether the new data banks contained the bibliographical reference as well as the abstract, since a great many people had said that they wasted a lot of time in the CICH and CONACyT trying to locate the document.

• Because of the last reason we decided to acquire those data banks which offered the biblio-graphic reference as well as the complete text of the article or book.

• The report was draw up and given to the Service Department which in return sent it to the different departments involved so that they could give their opinion of the possible acquisition.

• The final decision was made by the DGB and the Department of Services.

• When there are special offers on data banks more information is requested of the supplier as well as the material needed to carry out the studies mentioned above.

The Reference Department of the DGB uses, at the moment, 28 data banks on CD-ROM, and the subscription costs of these on CD-ROM and in printed form are given in the following table:

The following is a list of the areas covered by the data banks:

The Reference Department of the DGB has divided the people who use the data banks into two groups:

1. People from the university

• Students

• Researchers

• Faculty Members

• Administrative Personnel

2. People from outside the university

• Other universities, schools, etc.

• Industries

An analysis of the statistics about the people who normally use the data banks gives the following information:

• Students 57.87%

• Outsiders 14.68%

• Researchers 13.19%

• Faculty 9.36%

• Administrative Prsnl. 4.89%

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TOTAL: 99.99%

3. CONCLUSIONS

The CD-ROM has allowed the UNAM to have access to information much more efficiently, since the possibilities of relating or excluding are much quicker with a computer. It allows for more intensive and more frequent consultations.

The use of CD-ROM in the search for information is on the rise due in part to its speed, reliability and low cost.

Thanks to the CD-ROM the DGB has been able to promote the use of its LIBRUNAM data bank, however, the subscribers have not been able to take advantage of the service due to problems in the telephone system. For this reason it can be stated that the CD-ROM allows people to have access to information in countries with an inadequate telephone system.