{"id":559,"date":"2020-03-29T07:49:50","date_gmt":"2020-03-29T06:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/?p=559"},"modified":"2020-03-29T07:49:50","modified_gmt":"2020-03-29T06:49:50","slug":"academic-libraries-a-chilean-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/2020\/03\/29\/academic-libraries-a-chilean-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Academic Libraries: a Chilean Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Esta foto de Autor desconocido est\u00e1 bajo licencia CC BY-SA-NC<\/a><\/p>\n

Academic libraries are currently transforming the traditional services\u00a0of\u00a0reference\u00a0and lending for researchers and undergraduates to one where they provide large collaborative spaces for their users to work on projects of their areas of study or simply on business projects.<\/p>\n

This trend is quite attractive thanks to digital services. For example, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile implements cultural management services customized to the needs of the Library users. This encompasses guidance for the usage of the library and its management systems, as well as bibliographic research for dissertations. This is certainly is a step forward for our academic libraries in the sense that it goes beyond traditional services. Effectively, the creation of collaborative workspaces serves not only the internal users of the prestigious university but also all other kind of researchers and students.<\/p>\n

All Chilean higher-educations institutions \u2013 so-called traditional universities, professional institutes, and technical training centers \u2013 have been involved in such an initiative. In other words, academic libraries have been transformed into distant relatives of the public libraries, sharing the same need to create links with communities and provide quality knowledge and cultural management.<\/p>\n

Clearly, such an evolution has not been easy given the usual budget metrics of academic libraries, which in Chile depend on the level of student enrollments in institutions of higher education. Still, the increase of document loans has helped raise awareness amongst authorities of the need to provide an adequate budget to such initiatives. In effect, adequate resources allocation has proven beneficial for both external and internal users of the academic libraries.<\/p>\n

Today, in the same way as digital readings clubs are renewing the usage of public libraries, likewise co-working spaces are reinventing academic libraries. In that sense, awareness by policy makers and library managers of these trends is important, because reaching out to communities means opening up to new potential students of the higher education institutions.<\/p>\n

Chile is changing. This is true not only the constitutional field \u2013 since a December 2019 popular vote, the political framework known as \u201cMagna Carta\u201d, which dates to the 1980\u2019s, is set to change. This is clearly also the case for libraries and especially academic libraries and their impact on communities. There are 63 universities in Chile and 34 Institutions of higher education that are geographically positioned in places outside the reach of Public Libraries. Therefore such academic libraries must have a double function: provide curricular education, and encourage reading.<\/p>\n

Camila Mu\u00f1oz Churruca<\/p>\n

Bibliotecol\u00f3ga
\nUniversidad Bolivariana de Chile
\nChile
\nEmail: camilachurruca@live.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Further reading:<\/p>\n