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Anna KomperdaPolish Internet LibrariesIntroducionWe have just marked the tenth anniversary of the internet communication in Poland - assuming that the first e-mail message sent on August 17, 1990 to the Computer Centre of the University of Warsaw was the first of its kind. There was some research on computer networks conducted by the university community in "before Internet" Poland, however, it did not make any impact on the library environment. Librarians did not have access to this very complex science, and meager "results" of attempts to use such communication were discouraging. Along with the dynamic development of telecommunications came library computerisation, and the significance of access to Internet information, and skills in using it, became very important. That is why, these ten years merit certain analysis. The newly acquired Internet knowledge and expertise is being employed in various ways. For example, libraries create their own web pages and their number grows constantly. It became necessary to initiate listings of the libraries` net addressess. Such service was provided by EBIB in March of 1999, and is updated regularly. This, rather laborious, work benefited many by providing exhaustive information about how to reach most Polish libraries on the net. It also allowed for the presentation of various interesting library statistics and classifications. Such resource seems to be indispensable for people who search for any kind of data on library science, librarianship in general, as well as other scientific or cultural information. The analysisThe author used the following sources for compiling this data:
Where big university libraries are concerned, the main branches` home pages were listed, as well as departmental, institute, and other. (i.e. the library of the Department of Economics in Rzeszów or the Academy of Agriculture`s branch in Cracow). Considering Internet`s very dynamic and constantly changing nature, the data analysis presented here accepted some margin of error. There might have been some omissions (due to the inability of a search engine to locate a desired address or the incoming or new .The author kindly requests the reader to consult the appendices for number charts. Library home pages listed by citiesUp until August of 2000, the list of home pages (to be located under LINKS on EBIB`s homepage), presented connections to 303 libraries in 68 cities of the country. For the PURPOSE of this presentation, all Polish cities were divided onto four groups depending on the number of inhabitants. Please, refere to the table below: Table 1
Most of the web pages (158) can be found in the first group of five major Polish cities (over 500,000 inhabitants). These are the biggest unversity centres - Warsaw, Cracow, Poznań, Wrocław, Łodź. Many university, public, pedagogical, theological, military libraries, also the libraries of science centres and the libraries of business companies present their web pages there. A second group (27 cities/towns, over 100,000-500,000 inhabitants) includes 104 libraries. The following cities can be listed here: Katowice, Szczecin, Bydgoszcz, Toruń, Gdańsk, Lublin, Rzeszów, Olsztyn, Białystok, Zielona Góra, Kielce. This group includes cities which, so far, did not have university libraries. Recently, there have been some private university centres established in those cities whose libraries have Internet access (i.e. the library of School of Management in Tychy, or the main library of the Academy of Economics in Włocławek). The third group of 13 cities (50,000-100,000 inhabitants) includes 14 libraries. This means that only one library per town possesses its internet home page. Only the town of Przemyśl has two. The libraries are as follows: the main library of Podlasie Academy in Siedlce, the library of the department of Social Sciences in Stalowa Wola (Lublin Theological University`s branch), the libraries of some private academies and universities in Nowy Sącz, Zamość, Konin, some public and pedagogical libraries. There is also the fourth group - the group of 23 small towns (less than 50,000 inhabitants) with 27 libraries, some of which have more than one web page (libraries in Cieszyn, for example). Other small town libraries worth mentioning can be found in: Dzierzoniów, Oleśnica, Ilawa, Grudziądz, Łaziska Górne, Morąg, Sanok, Swarzędz, Trzebinia. Undoubtedly, it is the initiative of local communities and library staff in those towns, that contributed to such active development of internet culture. Libraries` according to voivodshipsTable 2
The largest number of libraries with access to Internet can be found in the Mazovian voivodship. These are, first and foremost, 81 libraries in Warsaw. The smallest number of web pages per library can be listed in Lubuskie voivodship - in three libraries of Zielona Góra and in one of Szprotawa. The analysis of the page presenting the list of Polish libraries listed by cities shows the leadership of present and former voivodhip cities in all aspects of Internet access and use. However, county and community libraries begin to take initiative, for example, the public library of tiny community of Mrozy (Pomerania district, 365 inhabitants) has had its web page for some time now. The data of chart 2 can be seen below, on the map of Poland.
The libraries home pages listed according to library type.In EBIB, Polish libraries were listed according to their type in the section LINKS and placed on the page: Polish Libraries - (acccording to library type) The analysis of the data is shown in table 3 and chart 3. Table 3
The libraries` classification by type shows that the most www pages can be found in public libraries and the least in high schools. Numbers, however, cannot be the only criterion in this analysis, since the developing trends and tendencies are important as well. A brief description of individual library types.Public librariesIt is the biggest group with developed www pages. It is, also, the little fraction of the "traditionally" functioning libraries. The first libraries to be found in EBIB`s LINKS section in March of 1999 were those of big cities only: Warsaw, Łódź. The few exceptions were: the Public Library of Tarnów and County Library of Sieradz. Due to many administrative changes in the country, many former voivodship libraries became "county", "community", or "city" libraries. Recently, the libraries of small towns like Oleśnica, Łaziska Górne, Mrozy have completed their home pages, too. This group includes big regional scientific libraries in Szczecin, Toruń and libraries of newly created voivodships. University and technical university librariesIn the beginning of 1999, when this classification was at its preparatory stage, all big university libraries were already presenting information on their www pages in more or less detailed form. As they got Internet access early, now they have the most experience in presenting their resources. At present, all except one (Library of Radom Polytechnic) university libraries possess their web pages.All university libraries seem to be very actively pursuing the process of presentation of their resources on the net at many levels. Nearly all branch libraries of major academic centres in Warsaw, Cracow, Toruń, Łodź have web pages. Branch unversities in Stalowa Wola, Bielsko-Biała are in the same situation. Among technical libraries, the lead belongs to polytechnic libraries, however, this database includes the libraries of large busines companies (i.e. `Organika-Zachem` in Bydgoszcz). The libraries of institute, reasearch and scientific centres, and the library of Polish Academy of Science.This is another large group of libraries presenting information about various scientific fields on the Internet. They function in big cities and small towns. Some of them have close ties with the industry (i.e. "Blachownia" in Kędzierzyn-Koźle, the Institute of Technology of Timber in Poznań), and some have an entirely different profile (German Historical Institute in Warsaw). The libraries of private universities.Apart from the libraries of renowned, state-funded universities, there are those of the new academic establishments, such as: banking, management, marketing schools, as well as business or insurance academies. They offer a very interesting and extensive information on the Internet. The cities of Nowy Sącz, Tychy, Włocławek, Zamość and Konin, among others, are home to these universities. Theological libraries.These libraries can be proud of their very professionally designed Internet presentation. This group consists of libraries of theological universities such as: the library of the Catholic University of Lublin, the Cardinal Wyszyński University in Warsaw, the seminaries in Poznań, Szczecin, Wrocław. The parochial and convent/monasteries libraries can also be included (i.e.the library and archives of the Jesuits in Cracow). Medical LibrariesThe libraries of all state-funded medical academies in the country are present on www pages. One can also log on to the libraries of some smaller medical institutes or even hospitals (i.e. Central Hospital of the Military Academy in Warsaw). Pedagogical LibrariesThese are branches belonging to pedagogical academies (the main library of Pedagogical Academy of Cracow, Bydgoszcz, Częstochowa, Rzeszów and some voivodship libraries in Warsaw, Gdańsk, Kalisz). Both the pedagogical libraries of big cities and small town ones present their web pages on the Internet. The information serves future teachers and local teaching communities. Agricultural LibrariesAll libraries of agricultural academies possess their web pages. Former Institute of Pedagogy and Agriculture, now Agricultural Academy of Podlasie in Siedlce presents itself on the Internet, as well as Central Agricultural Library in Warsaw. Military LibrariesUntil recently, the information about military libraries and their resources was more than limited. That is why, their presence on their web pages deserves some attention. Some of those libraries are listed in our compilation, i.e. Centre for Scientific Military Information, Central Military Library, as well as libraries of other military academies located in Warsaw, Łódź, Gdynia, Poznań, Toruń, Wrocław. Economical LibrariesApart from all libraries of Economical Academies in Poland and their branches, also the library of the Polish National Bank and Central Statistical Library in Warsaw can be found on the Internet. The Libraries of Art AcademiesThese are branches belonging to musical academies of Warsaw, Bydgoszcz, Łódź and Poznań, as well as libraries of theatrical schools in Cracow and Warsaw. Also, the Wrocław Academy of Fine Arts can be found in that category. The Libraries of Sports AcademiesAll sports academies` libraries are present on the web pages - in Warsaw, Katowice, Cracow, Poznań, Gdańsk and Wrocław High School LibrariesThe www page information lists the libraries of grammar schools mostly in Poznań, Toruń, Cracow, Bydgoszcz and the only grade school in this group - no 67 in Poznań. Other LibrariesThe libraries which cannot be placed in any of the above-listed category are: the National Library, the Library of Sejm (Parliament`s lower house), the Library of Communication, the Library of British Council, the archives, the libraries of scientific societies, museums, information centres (the Council of Europe in Warsaw). On-line catalogues onThe most important information any library user expects most to find on a library web page is the presentation of such library`s resources (books, newspapers, staff`s credits). Not all libraries, however, render such data accessible. Table 4 and chart 4 below show the number of libraries with web pages and on-line catalogues to be found on the Internet. Table 4
Considering the fact that main and branch libraries use the same computer system, this analysis presents only web pages of main libraries of academic centres. As it can be easily noted, one can have access to on-line catalogues of all university libraries. The libraries of Polish Academy of Sciences have the same number of www pages and on-line catalogues (24). Some of those libraries possess both web pages and catalogues, some do not have the pages, but allow access to their resources through mutual computer system (Web/Pac Horizon). There are also libraries that do have their web pages but do not allow for their catalogues to be used. The most interesting web page/catalogue proportion can be spotted in theological libraries - 79 catalogues and 16 pages. This phenomenon is due to the process of active computerisation of all theological libraries at all levels: university, diocese and parochial. This process is conducted by FIDES (the Federation of Theological Libraries). A fairly even proportion of www pages and catalogues can be found in offers of technical, medical, agricultural, military, economical libraries, which means that the majority of those, by presenting their pages at the same time give access to their resources via Internet. In case of public, pedagogical, science centres, institutes, private universities, and sports academies the difference is more pronounced which means that smaller number of those libraries give access to information about their resources through Internet. Please, refer to chart 5 below for the numbers of on-line catalogues.
Apart from theological libraries, the libraries of Polish National Academy of Sciences, various technical, institute, medical and university branches have on-line catalogues. The only grammar school to present its catalogue on the Internet is the School of nuns of the Immaculate Conception in Szymanów (accessible through FIDES). Up until August of 2000, 147 libraries of 56 locations were posted on "Polish Libraries-on-line catalogues" list (including the theological libraries made available by FIDES). These were mostly big academic libraries of big voivodship cities. A certain trend can be noted an effort to implement one common computer system to serve all library catalogues of a given city. Some cities had already taken up such initiative - Gdańsk/Gdynia/Sopot, Cracow, Lublin, łódź, Poznań, Warsaw use VIRTUA, VTLS, Web/Pac Horizon. While analysing the contents of Polish on-line catalogues, one should remember however, that these data do not reflect the actual resources of a given library, since the compilation of data started in the nineties along with the purchase of the computer system. The summaryDue to ever-changing nature of data (growing number of www pages., frequent lack of access to the net, changes in addresses and names), it is a trying task to provide accurate statistics in this analysis. Rather, its purpose was to present the conclusions and impressions about the presence and significance of library web pages in various regions of the country. The author of this analysis` did not, however, attempt to evaluate the actual contents of the information of the www pages, or the way the libraries use the Internet. The library web pages are often placed on university or company servers which renders getting the accurate data about access to those pages impossible. Translated by: Dorota Jaglarz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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