Library cooperation in Belgium

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Library co-operation in Belgium

• Julien Van Borm
• Director UIA-Library
• University of Antwerp

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Belgium

• The country and its structures
• Belnet

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Belgium

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Belgium The country and its structures

• Population 10.350.000
• From an centralised to a confederate state
• 1830 a centralised state
• By 2003 a federal state
• Regions
• Flanders
• Brussels
• Wallonia
• Cultural communities
• Flemish (60)
• French (40)
• German (60.000)

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Belgium The country and its structures

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Belgium Research network

• Network of research institutes Belnet

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Library co-operation in general

• Typology of library co-operation.
• M. Line (UK).Good in se?
• E. Häkli (FI). Front office and back office

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Library Co-operation Typology

• Co-operation activities
• Co-operative acquisition schemes
• Nowadays used for the co-operative licence
  schemes for e-information
• Idea of cross access (Elsevier ScienceDirect)
• Co-operative retention (depots)
• Union catalogues
• Interlending

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Library Co-operation in general M. Line

• Once seen as
• Good in se
• Question marks (M. Line)
• Too much concentration on the means
• Not enough thinking about the ends that
  co-operation is to serve
• No clear definition of the purposes
• No look for alternatives
• Lack of clarity
• Mostly seen from a national viewpoint
• Not enough cost conscious

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Library Co-operation in general E. Häkli

• Front office
• All activities directly related to the user
• User in the library
• Distant user
• This is the core business of every library
• Back office
• The local library is to free itself from the
  back office tasks
• Cataloguing
• Library automation systems
• Acquisition/organisation of e-information

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Library Co-operation E. Häkli

• A national centre should perform these tasks
• Equipment
• Know how
• Funding
• Ministries
• Universities
• Polytechnics
• Research institutes

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Library Co-operation E. Häkli

• Management
• Co-operation agreement
• Contract
• Board
• Staff
• Cost accounting and billing
• Control by
• Libraries and universities
• End users

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Library co-operation in Belgium Public libraries

• Flanders
• Legislation (1978 and 2002)
• A library in each community
• Library co-operation
• Neighbouring cities and villages
• Flemish level (VCOB)
• Over 300 public libraries
• Many new library buildings
• French speaking community
• Less well organised and developed public
  library structure

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Library co-operation in Belgium Research libraries

• Conference of university libraries and the
  Royal library (COBIRA)
• Union catalogues
• Acquisitions
• ILL
• French speaking Belgium
• BICfB Consortium for e-info
• Flanders
• VOWB (Flemish Research Libraries Council)
• General co-operation
• Elektron Consortium for e-info
• Two library networks

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Library co-operation in Belgium Products of the
co-operation between research libraries

• Union catalogues
• ILL
• E-info

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Library co-operation in Belgium Union catalogues

• Antilope periodicals
• Physical union catalogue
• On line
• Updated on a regular basis
• Manually
• Electronically

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Library co-operation in Belgium Union catalogues

• CCB
• Union catalogue of monographs
• Irregular publication
• Download from local catalogues
• SGML format
• CCB DDT
• On CD ROM

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Library co-operation in Belgium Union catalogues

• UniCat A virtual union catalogue
• Technology chosen OAI
• OAI (Open Archives Initiative Standard)
• Metadata structures
• Harvesting

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Library co-operation in Belgium Interlending and
document supply

• Rules
• Loans
• Photocopies
• Uniform tariffs
• Internal
• External
• Impala the Belgian electronic document
  ordering system
• Virlib the Belgian electronic document supply
  system

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Library co-operation in Belgium Impala the
Belgian electronic document ordering system

• Use
• End user driven
• Library controlled
• Linked with databases
• Antilope
• CBB
• ERL databases
• .

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Library co-operation in Belgium Impala the
Belgian electronic document ordering system

• General information on IMPALA
• Making a request
• Sending of the request
• Follow up of the request
• Clearing house
• Management information
• Number of (satisfied) requests
• Main suppliers
• Response times
• Costs
• List of frequently asked titles

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Library co-operation in Belgium Virlib the
Belgian electronic document supply system

• Scanning
• Ariel
• Appending the scan to the Impala request
• Virlib servers
• Virlib users
• Delivery on the desk of the user
• Delivery via the library

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Library co-operation in Belgium The e-library

• BICfB (French Belgium)
• Consortium for e-information
• Secondary databases
• Primary information full text journals
• Created by the French speaking universities
• Run by the libraries of these universities
• Funding
• The regional government
• The universities

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Library co-operation in Belgium The e-library

• Elektron (Flanders)
• Consortium for e-information
• Secondary sources
• Primary information full text
• Creation
• VOWB (Flemish Research Libraries Council)
• Flemish Ministry for Research Planning
• Ministry of Education
• Funding
• 2.000.000 EUR/year from government
• Extra funding from universities

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Library co-operation in Belgium The library
network consortia

• Libis Net (K.U. Leuven)
• Anet (University of Antwerp)

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Libis Net

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Libis Net

• Mission
• To support the participating libraries in their
  library management and in the services they
  provide for their patrons.
• Partners
• University libraries
• Polytechnics
• Parliament libraries
• Other research libraries

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Anet

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Anet

• Mission
• Support to the participating libraries and their
  users
• Library automation
• E-library
• Partners
• University libraries
• Polytechnic libraries
• Public library of Antwerp (ANUBIS)
• Other research libraries