Libraryblog

“A unique membership card will serve to access through the Internet to the online network that form 130 libraries from 109 Basque municipalities and has a database of 500.000 registers. Consulting the funds of all the libraries and having access to a loan service are some of the advantages of this new system online carried out by the Departamento de Cultura del Gobierno Vasco that want to incorporate the 270 public libraries to the network by the end of the year.

The Euskadi Libraries network online (www.liburutegiak.euskadi.net/katalogobateratua) is one of the previous steps to the future Euskadi National Library, whose legal draft could be approbed by the regional executive before summer, as the Consejera de Cultura Miren Azkarate said yesterday. At the moment, San Sebatián and Bilbao will not join the future Network of Library Networks untill 2006 because they have imcompatible management programmes.
Among the main advantages of the online network, Miren Azkarate remarked the membership card common for all the libraries, that will facilitate the possibility of using the services of any centre, and consulting and making the loan of the library funds from their home through the PC, with a card scanner that will be given when they subscribe to the system. Besides, according to the Consejera de Cultura, new services for the users will be given, as the material loan service among libraries.
The starting of the Library network online has meant, among other activities, the elaboration of manuals for librarians and the offer of courses for library professionals.
Colletive catalogue
Adding to this network, the Basque Government project includes the creation of a Collective Catalogue of País Vasco Public Libraries, in which the public libraries and the libraries of Basque university, Deusto and Mondragón participate; Santuario de Loyola and Seminario de Vitoria, and the libraries in the Diputaciones and departamentos in País Vasco, among others.
This catalogue, updated three or four times a year and with a million registers, will be accessible for librarians and the rest of users. Its web is: www.liburutegiak.euskadi.net/bilgunea. Azkarate thought that the creation of this network is as important as the construction of an “emblematic building” for the Basque National Library, whose location will be known in autumn, once the Ley de Bibliotecas is approbed in the Parlamento Vasco.