Directors of libraries from CRUCH met at the University of O'Higgins

The First Ordinary Meeting of the Standing Committee of Library Directors of Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH)  The 2024 event was held at the Rancagua Campus of the University of O'Higgins.

Thus, representatives from universities across the country met on May 8th and 9th, led by the Commission's president, Karen Jara, They addressed topics such as the progress in the installation of the National Infrastructure Support Network for Access to Information, which is part of a memorandum of agreement of the Rectors of CRUCH; and the contribution of university libraries to the Strategic Management System.

In his greeting to the attendees of the meeting, the Academic Vice-Rector of the UOH, Carlos Pérez, He emphasized the importance of holding these types of meetings: “Receiving the delegations from CRUCH, CUECH or AUR It allows us to showcase ourselves to other higher education institutions as a university proud to have the capacity and enthusiasm to host such events. It sends a clear message that we consider ourselves a peer institution in every sense, and allows us to demonstrate our growth and, indeed, the achievements we have attained in our short history. Furthermore, these meetings have always been forums for exchanging best practices. The participation of peers—in this case, administrators who face similar challenges in their work—allows us to receive invaluable feedback on-site.”.

He also noted that “it is very positive that libraries have evolved from the historical concept of a place where books were kept, to becoming a resource center, a space for study; a place where digitized knowledge is integrated, where there are opportunities to support teaching and research, a place where work different from that done in the classroom is also permitted. And, of course, a place where the university community, not just the students, can meet to complement university life with aspects beyond those that motivate them to work, research, or study. From this perspective, we believe that libraries are destined to play a relevant role in planning this idea of a modern, inclusive university connected to its community.”.

For her part, the president of the Standing Committee of Library Directors of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities stated that “with this work we seek to standardize our work at the national level, to standardize our role. And we chose the University of O'Higgins because the idea is always to travel throughout Chile and learn about the realities of our peers, and in that way, support each other, make our role known, what we do, and analyze how we can better carry out our work.”.

Karen Jara explained that, during the two-day meeting, they addressed “our role as the Advisory Commission on Libraries and Documentation (CABid) within the National Access Infrastructure, since the University Rectors have signed a memorandum of understanding regarding open access to the information we hold, and we have been mandated—by the Rectors—to participate in this National Access Infrastructure Network.” She explained that “we discussed providing access to the articles deposited by our researchers, making them available in the institutional repositories of our libraries, and, for example, the National Research and Development Agency, ANID, can be used to give greater visibility to the work of researchers at each institution belonging to the Council of Rectors. We are also working on the Council of Rectors' new university library standards, our 2024 version.”.

The meeting was attended by the directors of university libraries, located from Arica to Punta Arenas, and the UOH was represented by the head of the Library Unit, Bernardo Rojas, who noted: “For the UOH Library Unit, it is very gratifying to host the first ordinary meeting of the Permanent Commission of Library Directors of the Council of Rectors of CRUCH, an instance dedicated to the exchange of knowledge, experiences and good practices developed in the different units that we manage.”.

Bernardo Rojas indicated that “the university library ecosystem has evolved enormously, integrating into our work the different aspects of relevant participation, related mainly to Open Science and support for research; it is at this point where we have worked together with the other universities, and we continue to do so in these instances, to advance in the interoperability of the institutional academic repositories that store, preserve and disseminate the academic and scientific production of the different universities.”.