Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)

4. Session / Séance. Strategies for Links with Historical Research / Stratégies de Communication envers la Recherche historique - Gonzalez, Pedro: Data Bases and Long Distance Communication. A Spanish Éxperience / Bases de données et information a distance. Une expérience des archives espagnoles (english 319 - français 343)

4. Session/Séance: Gonzalez, Data Bases and long distance Communcation

The Spanish academie network, which endeavours to manage the interconnection of Spanish research centres with each other and with other networks, is the IRIS network (Interconexion de Recursos Informâticos), included in the National Plan for Scientific Research and Technological Development. It endeavours to establish a homogenous infrastructure of communications for the Spanish scientific community, providing connection with other scientific networks and based on the use of the architecture for interconnecting open mode systems (OSI). It is integrated within the two principal organizations of computing networks for collaboration between researchers in Europe: RARE (Reseaux Associés pour la Recherche Européenne) and COSINE (Cooperation for Open System Interconnection Networking in Europe). The European academic network is included within the EEC’s COSINE programme and it is possible to gain access to this from Spain through the IRIS network.

One particular type of network, of great importance in the bibliographic field, to which we allude due to its closeness to professional fields, is the attempt to centralize all the information from all the institutions which form part of one whole into one single central computer which controls, manages, stores and distributes all the information centrally. The main examples of this type are RLIN (Research Library Information Network) and OCLC (Online Computer Library Center)6.

Particular bibliographic tasks (cataloguing, the acquisition of fonds, inter-library lending, etc.) may benefit enormously from work shared among the different libraries, a benefit which cannot be achieved in the Archives: the work of cataloguing each book, although each is to be found in all the libraries included in the network, need only be done once, as each centre is able to complete basic catalographic information using the specific references for the volumes they hold on their own shelves: collective or group catalogues and other services such as the inter-library loan service are enormously facilitated by this system, although their existence is only possible through the use of a number of description standards (AACR2) and very precise information interchange formats (MARC).

Although they provide access to bibliographic information services as do other online services, such as Dialog or Orbit data bases, they differ from the latter in that they offer technical librarian services (shared cataloguing, the production of indexes and catalogues, acquisitions monitoring, inter-library lending), more than simply pure reference.

6 RLIN, Research Library Information Network, created by the RLG (Research Library Group), has as a base a central computer belonging to Stanford University in California. Its four founding members (1978) were the University libraries of Columbia, Yale and Stanford, as well as the New York Public Library. Many other libraries have later joined the network, however. OCLC, Online Computer Library Center, was bom in 1967 as OCL (Ohio College Library), with its offices in Columbus (Ohio), changing to its present name in 1981 due to the phenomenal increase in the number of libraries of all sizes which participate in the network. At present OCLC is an X-25 packet switching network. See vol. 10, n° 6 of December, 1992, ofthe magazine The Electronic Library, p. 371-373, OCLC has published a declaration on its future strategy of incorporating Internet and NREN (National Research and Education Network).

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