Rosario Muciño-Reyes
Centro de Estudios de Asia y Africa
El Colegio de México
CP 01000 México, D.F., México
E-mail: colegiom@unamvm1.bitnet
Abstract: The Center for Asian and African Studies of El Colegio de México, has been preparing a Bibliographic Database for a few years, which, until now, has 100,000 bibliographic records. The resources of these documents are found in different libraries and information centers all over the Latin America territory. In November of this year, at the VII International Congress of Latin American Association for Asian and African Studies (ALADAA), there has been a workshop in which the integration for a Latin American system was recommended. Specialist on Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Expert Advisers of international organizations such as UNESCO and CEPAL attended the meeting. The system has been constructed in the first stage to include national nodes (Argentina, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Cuba), as well as a Latin American node, COLMEX-CEAA. These nodes will in term establish the contact with Japan, China, India, Middle East and Africa. At the present time contact is kept with Japan via the use of CD-ROM with specialized computers that can read both Japanese and English. For the second stage, Brazil will be the main node for Austral Africa. During the period from 1990 to 1992, an investigation was made on the information infrastructure of the national nodes of the countries mentioned above The themes discussed were: 1) Specialist's Directories, 2) System Limits -- type of information to include, and languages it covers, 3) Physical Aspects -- physical storage of the infor-mation, and criteria for the treatment of the information and its transfer, 4) Technical support a) Training, b) Technical advice, 5) Technical Tool -- controlled vocabulary and types of abstracts, and Products of the System -- services and publications.
Resumen: El Centro de Estudios de Asia y Africa de El Colegio de México, ha estado preparando una Base de Datos Bibliográfica desde hace algunos años, el cual en estos momentos cuenta con 100,000 registros bibliográficos, cuyos documentos fuentes, se encuentran contenidos en diferentes bibliotecas, unidades y centros de Información de América Latina. En noviembre del presente año, dentro del VII Congreso Interna-cional de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Estudios de Estudios de Asia y Africa (ALADAA), se llevó a cabo un seminario, en el que se concretó la integración de un sistema en América Latina, participando especialistas de América Latina, Asia y Africa, así como funcionarios de organismos internacionales como UNESCO y CEPAL. El sistema está formado en su primera etapa por nodos nacionales (Argentina, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Brasil, Perú, Chile, Cuba), y por un nodo latinoamericano, COLMEX-CEAA, para establecer el contacto con Japón, China, India, Medio Oriente y Africa. Actualmente se mantiene contacto vía CD-ROM con Japón y se cuenta con computadoras especiales que pueden leer japonés-inglés. Para la segunda etapa Brasil, será el nodo latinoamericano para Africa Austral. De 1990 a 1992, se realizó un dia-gnóstico sobre la infraestructura de información, motivo por el cual se decidió nombrar nodos nacionales a los países antes mencionados. Los aspectos a tratar serán: 1) Direcctorio de Especialistas, 2) Límites del Sistema -- tipo de información a ser ingresada, y idiomas que abarca, 3) Aspectos Físicos -- almacenamiento físico de la información, y criterios para el tratamiento de la información y su transferencia, 4) Apoyo Técnico al Sistema -- capacitación, y asesoramiento técnico, 5) Herramientas Técnicas a-- vocabularios controlados, y tipos de resumenes, y 6) Productos del Sistema -- servicios y publicaciones.
In the last years, the specialist on Asian and African regions have shown concern and pre-occupation because of the duplicity and lack of information in some countries of Latin America. (Cintra, 1990) At the institutional level this concern has been also shared, that although has not been materialized in actions corresponding to the problems of information, at least have contri-buted to develop a conscience that the information element is not only support, as it was con-sidered traditionally, but an integral component for all type of investigation.
The bibliographic information systems about Asia and Africa for Latin America, at regional level, is formed up to date by: The Asian and African Study Center of El Colegio de Mexico (Mexico), Japanese Studies Department. Faculty of Philosophy. University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), Information and Reference Center about Central America and the Caribbean. Uni-versity of Costa Rica and FLACSO (Costa Rica), Africa and Middle East Study Center and Asia Study Center of Cuba (Cuba), Asian and African Study Center. Federal University of Rio (Brazil), Regional Study Institute. Antioquia University (Colombia), Latin American Institute of Social Researches (Ecuador), Institute of Islamic Studies (Perú). At national level each one of the mentioned institutions is in charge of compiling the produced information and contained in all the country.
2. ANTECEDENTS
One of the first steps of SIBAyA, is performed in 1969, when the UNESCO Section for Oriental Studies in Latin America, gathered with the specialist of Asia and Africa, producing the proposal for the specialists of Asia and Africa, producing the proposal for the creation of an spe-cialized heap, counting with bibliographic material in the following languages: Hindi, Sanskrit, Swahili,Japanese, Arab and Chinese. This idea was retaken in the Colegio de Mexico in 1968 and a specialized documental heap was forming, that presently of this work was the Afroasiatic Bibliography in Spanish, published in 1980. (Lama, 1980)
At the beginning of 1987 it started to be printed in a series manner, thematic and by large areas bibliography: to that time the collections amounted to the following figures: Africa, 3,200 bibliographic records, and Asia 6,800. Nonetheless for those dates there was not an online system, the bibliographies were realized through a program in batch. It was until 1990 when it was pre-sented to the academic community of El Colegio de Mexico, and precisely to the Asian and Afri-can Study Center (teachers, investigators and students), a data base with 15,000 records. During the two following years it was carefully revised the information with the purpose to improve the keywords to correct errors in relation to the location of the material, digitation, among others. In November of the last year it was decided to present this database as an extra option for the specialists in Asia and Africa and it was proposed to integrate an information system, through regional cooperation with the interested countries of Latin America; such proposal was carried out within the VII International Congress of the Latin American Association of Afroasiatic Studies, the proposal was received with success by the majority of the countries, forming permanent working commissions (Muciño, 1992).,
3. DESCRIPTION OF THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS ON ASIA AND AFRICA
The system was formalized the 24th November of 1992, as response to the concerns already mentioned in the Antecedents, and by the need to create a mechanism to permit an interchange of experiences on information as well as in investigation projects and teaching of the specialist in Asia and Africa.
Given the amount of information comprehending to link two geocultural areas as big as Asia and Africa, the task was subdivided in the following seven parts: India, China, Japan, Middle East, Subsaharian Africa, Southeast Asia and Pacific (from the Oriental point of view), each one with its respective coordinator of node. The central coordination is at charge of Mexico, Brazil for Africa, Peru for Japan, Chile for Chine, Argentina for India, Cuba for Middle East, and the other two areas have not yet a direct coordination, which is undertaken by Mexico.
Presently the system is financed by the Japan Foundation in Mexico and we expect to have favorable news from the UNESCO Office for Information Programs; from the OAS and the IDRC of Canada for the following financial requirements.
In all the countries the same methodology will be utilized to regulate the procedures and techniques, main aspect to fulfill one of the objectives, which is maintain the database of Asia and Africa, and to provide an expedite service. In order to carry out this, there must exist national infrastructures of information on which the system will rest, reason for what in the design it was contemplated the strengthening or creation of an adequate infrastructure according to the case in each one of the participant countries through counseling and training sessions. In the first meeting the following resolutions were taken:
• Limitations of the System -- Type of Information to be Accessed and Volume of Literature
It will be accessed all the documental material produced on the geocultural areas of Asia and Africa, taking as starting points the seven subdivisions previously mentioned, nevertheless, their large volume obliges to establish realistic goals to limit the access of the bibliographic information to the system in different phases.
In order to visualize the magnitude of the volume of the documental material, a directory of specialists in Asia and Africa and of higher education institutions, investigations centers, univer-sities counting within their study programs with themes in natural sciences such as history, anthro-pology, literature, language, etc., of the mentioned areas, was initiated.
It was also recommended that the system consider to apply the mechanisms that permit an easy interconnection with other regional systems that might have bibliographic references of interest, such as BIREME, CEPAL, AGRIS, INFOPLAN, etc.
Regarding languages of the source documents, these will have to be translated according to the existing international norms; form the regulation of the languages: Japanese, Chinese, Hindi, Sanskrit and Arab there will be a technical meeting for Central America and the Caribbean in February of 1994. Although the titles will be translated, it is pretended for the future that the sys-tem be able to handle the native languages and to include the original title of each one of the works. For the documents written in Spanish, a descriptive abstract of the work is realized, which will be used as bases for the second edition of the Afroasiatic Bibliography in Spanish.
• Technical Aspects
The resolutions arrived at in this field, had as purpose to maintain the information system within a frame of a realistic cost, considering in the first phases the possibilities of utilizing the installed capacity and the specialized human resources in each one of the components of the system.
Physical Storage of the Information
In relation with the physical storage of the documents, as well as of the bibliographic records, the system will proceed to:
- Since the library "Daniel Cosío Villegas" of El Colegio de México, count already with a basic collection, this will be taken as starting point for the Database.
- Each one of the participants will forward constantly his bibliographic records through any medium: mail, fax, electronic mail; depending this of the country and its initial infrastructure.
- The source documents will remain in each of the institutions reporting and to the biblio-graphic record the name of the institutions that holds it will be added.
- It is pretended in short time to create a compact disc with the information on Asia and Africa existing in the region. A first disc will contain only the bibliographic information and its location, as a union catalog, and the second disc will contain the complete text.
- As a starting point it has been taken the Database on Asia and Africa of the Colegio de Mexico, with 100,000 records, this base will gather all the information that the participant coun-tries send and it will engage itself into publishing a yearly compilation of the material of all the participating countries.
Criteria for the Handling of the Information and Its Transference
Since in Latin America the bibliographic database operator of higher use is ISIS (Integrated Set of Information System), it was agreed to utilize the same since it guarantees an easy inter-change of information, nevertheless for the recovery fundamental changes were performed in order to have an online database via INTERNET; from the relational database models it was adopted the consulting part named QBE (Query by example), that permits the query bases on examples and permits a higher precision in localizing the information (Delgado, 1990). QBE is designed and destined to final users of any discipline, that count with little time to learn and to exploit the benefits of a database operator in its totality. Through the QBE, all the functions of the normal system are implanted and the user obtain benefits disposing of them in a common environment. The form of search that QBE permits is the most interesting characteristic of the system, since it eliminates the need to learn the functioning of the bolean operators essential for the information retrieval.
• Technical Support to the System - Training Activities
The training of the personnel that will support the system from each national node or from any point or counterpart, will be performed according to the following short- and medium-term action plan:
- El Colegio de México in coordination with the Asian and African Study Center and Com-puter Center, have prepared basic level courses, intermediate and advanced ones for the use of Microisis package version 3.0 of general manner, for the participants of all the countries that form the system.
- A basic package of information has been designed, that includes a code manual of biblio-graphic records and two diskettes with Microisis and the design of the database to be utilized in a common way.
- Conferences cycles and courses on some of the interest areas such as: language (Japanese, Chinese, Hindi, etc.) history, literature, among others, will be realized.
For the long-term plan, there will be realized updating courses on information, documental procedures, international relations, language, history, politics, religion, in some of the countries participating in the system, according to the needs and requests of the countries, all programmed with one year of anticipation.
Technical Advice
The technical advice was considered for the participant national nodes in order to strengthen or create information infrastructures in each one of them. This aspect was underlined as one of the priorities since the future feeding of the system will rely on it. In this way the Computer Center of El Colegio de Mexico, maintains a program of technical advise bases in the characteristics and infrastructure level of information of the participant nodes. It is important to remark that for the better development of the system, the technical horizontal cooperation is being promoted in order to decentralize gradually the information system of the general coordination, in this case Mexico (Beynon-Davis, 1989).
• Technical Tools - Controlled Vocabularies
Presently each country utilizes different types of vocabularies and even the natural language. Nevertheless in a second phase the regulation of the terms will be supported by a vocabulary of Afroasiatic terms, project that is in process of development by experts in each one of the sub-divisions (China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Subsaharian Africa, and the Pacific), as well as the participation of linguists.
• Products of the System
As a result of the activities of the system, the following services and products will be offered:
- Online search via INTERNET.
- Bibliography on request about specific themes, obtained from the database formed with the recollection and information processing, the requests may be forwarded via: telephone, mail, fax, telex, electronic mail, INTERNET and BITNET.
- Selective dissemination of information according to profiles of interest of the users, in a monthly basis.
- Directory of Specialists on Asia and Africa.
- Bibliographic Yearbook of the accessed information by the region.
- Second edition of the Afroasiatic Bibliography in Spanish.
- Afroasiatic terms Thesauri
- Buddhist Images Catalog (multimedia and hypermedia)
- CD-ROM's of the database at bibliographic record level and full text.
4. STRATEGY AND METHODOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM
One of the most important aspects searched as strategy, is the participation of the users in the different steps or phases of the design, concept and first steps of the development of the system, which helps in large measure to the adapting of the real needs of information as well as of handl-ing of the same.
During the design and concept setting of the system, the application of such strategy was directed to establish the information requirements from the part of the specialists in Asia and Africa. Reason for which it exists the constant presence of them in the technical discussions, so that their points of view will remain reflected in the final recommendation and proposals (Kesner, 1988).
This was guaranteeing that the general lines of this were adjusted to the conditions and opportunities of the respective national infrastructures of information, avoiding any over dimen-sional solution of activities that would lead the proposed system to a clear failure. It is worth to mention that it has been fundamental the presence of both parts in information and computer development, since this made possible to engage them into a jointly task, necessary engagement, since a project of such dimension cannot be a unique responsibility of one single part, because its continuity depends directly on the permanent participation and interest of both parts.
Bases on the previous concepts, the Colegio de Mexico, has reserved for itself the prelimnary activities of study, design, promotion, training and coordination of the system, trying to delegate responsibilities in the national nodes, when these be able to satisfy their proper needs of informa-tion as well as the ones of regional interchange. Is for that matter that the degree of centralization or decentralization definitive of the system will only be determined al the light of the process of slowly absorption of responsibilities on the part of each national or regional node.
5. STRUCTURE OF THE SYSTEM
Among the parameters to be considered, it is included the organization that will be given to the system, centralized or decentralized, or better, the middle point of these, as for example the case of the national nodes that feed with national information the regional nodes that are charged with supervising all a regional as in the case of Costa Rica, which is a regional node for the Caribbean.
The combinations of activities to centralize or decentralize are innumerable, nonetheless, the activities will be directed always toward the decentralization, in order to create, through the distri-bution of responsibilities, the respective national capacity for carrying out and serve its own national needs.
Finally, it is important to remark that the decentralization of the system insides greatly in the costs of the same, as it is evident that a decentralized system distributed the economical load among the participant countries.
6. CONCLUSIONS
One of the most important aspects of this system
of information, is that for first time all the region will be covered in
the analysis of information about Asia and Africa, since due to the characteristics
of the study, language, and institutions that perform these types of projects
of investigation and formal studies, the access to the documentary materials
was almost null. With the system, the necessary mechanisms for the easy
and fast access to such materials have been created, besides inviting the
specialist to realize a Latin American Discussion Group via electronic
mail, which will help to strengthen shared relations of investigation.
REFERENCES
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Delgado-Villegas, José-Antonio y Rosario Muciño, "Aplicación de QBE query by example a Micro-isis," En Memorias II. Congreso Latinoamericano de Bibliotecas Universitarias, La Habana, Cuba, 1990, pp. 22-31.
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