Role of librarians

[Nuria Gallart. UAB]

This is my first contribution to a newsgroup and I am 
not an English-native speaker. So, I ask you for some 
understanding on my possible mistakes. 

I am working at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona 
Libraries Service which is currently involved in a 
research project called BORGES, partially funded by 
the EC Libraries Programme, which aims to develop an 
automated information filtering service dealing with 
messages from newsgroups and documents at selected 
web servers. 

Users will define profiles and these will be periodically 
matched (daily) against new messages and documents 
available on Internet. 

In the first phase of this project we have had to  
define our role in such a service, which would do the 
difference with many other computer research oriented pilot 
experiences already performed at some universities. 

The UAB Library team identified 5 functions for the 
library in the implementation and administration of 
this new service: 

1. The library as point of access to the Internet. 

2. Users training in the definition of profiles and general 
   use of the system. 

3. Selection of relevant information sources to be filtered. 

4. Collection and analysis of user feedback. 

5. Coordination with technical developers, acting as 
   representatives of the end-users. 

Discussions around these functions have arosen between 
the partners involved in the project. I would like to submit 
them to this open discussion about the role of the libraries 
in the Internet. 

Nuria Gallart
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Servei de Biblioteques
Edifici A
08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona)
Spain
e-mail: gallart at cc.uab.es