Library Networking of the Universidad de Oriente: A Case Study of Introduction of Information Technology

The Universidad de Oriente was founded in 1958 and structured in five campuses, located in 5 different States in the northeastern region of Venezuela, with a current total enrollment of 43.000 students and 2500 teachers. A total of 20 libraries of different kinds served these students and professors till 1999. To introduce new information technologies to the libraries and all laboratories of the university, an intranet of the university with 32 networking systems was introduced for all campuses using Main Frame Relay technology. This case discusses the challenging job of creating consciousness about information literacy and university digital databases and digitalization of valuable documents.