Frank J. Lepkowski
Abstract — Inglés
During his two years as a Fulbright lectures in library science in Managua, Nicaragua, Frank Lepkowski observed the way in which the practice of librarianship is determined by the social and cultural framework, educational system, and economic conditions of a country. In the United States, collections in academic libraries generally are open to users for browsing and locating materials. In Nicaragua, however, academic libraries favor a closed stack arrangement that severely restricts the patron’s access to the collection. By studying this striking difference between the libraries of the two countries, Lepkowski is able to draw some interesting conclusions about how access to materials, the librarian–patron relationship, and the course of a library’s institutional development are interrelated.
The author also contrasts libraries at two large, socially diverse, state universities — Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN) — with the library at the smaller, more elite, private Instituto Centroamericano de Administración de Empresas (INCAE). The closed stacks and cataloging focus at UCA and UNAN, and INCAE’s open stack arrangement and reference oriented services bear out the conclusion that student body size and make up, financial resources, and type of library services provided clearly determine what kind of access to the collection users will have. Far from condemning the closed–stack arrangement in Nicaragua, Lepkowski believes it is the most rational and responsible course that librarians, faced with a hostile environment, can take to preserve their collections for future access.
Abstract — Español
El modelo de estantería cerrada y la cultura bibliotecológica en las bibliotecas académicas de Nicaragua
Durante los dos años que pasó en Nicaragua por su nombramiento como conferencista Fulbright en Nicaragua, Frank Lepkowski observó la manera como se realizaba la práctica bibliotecaria en un marco social y cultural, en un sistema educativo y dentro de las condiciones económicas de un país. Las colecciones en las bibliotecas académicas en los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica generalmente están abiertas a los usarios para facilitar consultar y localizar los materiales. En Nicaragua, sin embargo, las bibliotecas académicas favorecen el arreglo de estantería cerrada porque restringe el acceso de los usarios a la colección. A través del estudio de estas diferencias entre las bibliotecas de los dos países Lepkowski es capaz de delinear algunas conclusiones culturales interesantes acerca de la manera como se tiene acceso a los materiales, de la relación entre bibliotecario y usario y del curso de un desarrollo bibliotecario institucional y como todos estos elementos se relacionan entre sí.
El autor también contrasta las bibliotecas de dos ambientes socialmente diversos, dos localizadas en universidades estatales—la Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) y la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN)— con la otra que es una biblioteca de una institución más pequeña, más elitista perteneciente a una universidad privada: la del Instituto Centroamerican de Administración de Empresas (INCAE). Las características de estantería cerrada y enfoque a la catalogación en la UCA y la UNAN, frente a estantería abierta y enfoque a los servicios de referencia en el INCAE llevan a Lepkowski a la conclusión de que el cuerpo estudiantil, la composición de los recursos financieros y el tipo de servicios bibliotecarios proporcionados determinan claramente el tipo de acceso que tendrán los usarios a las colecciones. Lejos de condenar la colocación de la colección en estantería cerrada en Nicaragua, Lepkowski cree que ésta es la acción más racional, responsable y aún heróica que los bibliotecarios nicaragüenses han realizado con el objeto de conservar sus colecciones para acceso futuro.
During July 1987–July 1989 I taught courses in library science at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) in Managua, Nicaragua, as a Fulbright program lecturer. That period was an eventful one in the history of that troubled country; there was major fighting in the civil war, and there were restirrings of discontent with the ruling Sandinista party that resulted in its loss of the presidential election in 1990. The economy experienced hyperinflation; a new currency was introduced; a great hurricane devastated the Caribbean coast. Amidst these tensions and uncertainties the library profession in Nicaragua was working to fulfill its professional responsibilities.
For an American librarian to visit a foreign country and watch how one’s colleagues there practice their profession is a challenging experience. As the cultural context changes, so do some of the principles which form the basis for one's concept of the profession. Any professional’s basis for comparison is based on experience and training; the visiting librarian is often comparing how things are done in the host country with how things are done at home. Having studied and worked primarily in academic libraries, I naturally found myself comparing such institutions in Nicaragua with those in the United States. Although it may seem unfair to use the struggles and achievements of a very poor country suffering the effects of war and natural disaster for comparison, my intention is not presumptuously to call attention to perceived “shortcomings” of the profession in the Nicaraguan context, but rather to examine the nature of librarianship’s achievement within the context of another cultural framework and different material conditions.
For me as an American reference librarian, one of the most novel aspects of the library experience in Nicaragua, one which seemed to differentiate it the most from the familiar paradigms I had learned, is that the predominant model for housing the collection is that of a closed–stack, restricted access environment. From this choice, which arises from the cultural context, flow social and cultural consequences for the library profession that profoundly shape its ultimate achievement.
Certainly by far the most common arrangement in academic libraries in the United States (outside of archives and special collections) is that of having the shelves that house the collection open to the library’s patrons. We take this more or less completely for granted, and we spend millions of dollars on theft detection systems, photocopying, and purchasing replacements to cope with the losses which may result from leaving so many defenseless books sitting where someone can get at them. In the American context this testifies to libraries’ essential faith in their patrons and to their philosophy of giving maximum access to the contents of their collections. From a practical point of view, it is just as surely an indicator of the easy replace ability of library materials, given a certain level of financial resources and access to vast domestic and international book markets.
On the other hand, like many of their peer institutions in the Old World and elsewhere in Latin America, Nicaraguan academic libraries favor a closed–stack arrangement which bespeaks both a suspicion of the patron’s intentions and the preciousness and irreplaceability of items in the library’s collection. To examine these libraries in this context is to reemphasize the importance of the curatorial role of the librarian and to realize how certain circumstances make essential the function of defending the collection – a role which in American libraries has largely been mechanized or obviated by budgeting for replacements.
The three Nicaraguan academic libraries on which I want to focus reveal how different situations give rise to different approaches, when we compare two representative institutions with one special case. The Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) is a school operated by Jesuits (a private university before the Revolution) with a student population of around 4,000 during the period under consideration. The library, occupying a temporary building put up after the great earthquake of 1972 destroyed its predecessor, houses a collection of 30,000 books arranged by Dewey Decimal Classification. The circulating collection is in closed stacks, while the reference collection is in an open area near the main reading room.
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN), Managua campus, has historically been a national university funded by the state. Its spacious and comfortable library, constructed in the 1970s, houses 36,000 volumes, also classified by Dewey. The student population numbers 22,000, including those in the medical school. This library used to have open stacks for the circulating collection but in 1989 closed them to the patrons because of losses and mutilation. Closed stacks house the reference collection.
Finally, the Instituto Centroamericano de Administración de Empresas (INCAE), an elite business school founded in the early 1960s with assistance from Harvard University and located in the cooler heights of the mountains above Managua, has a library of 30,000 volumes, arranged by Library of Congress Classification; it is shelved in open stacks freely accessible to the student population of 100–150. The special circumstances of the INCAE make it the exception that proves the rule for the other Nicaraguan academic libraries, for reasons which will become clear. In general, the closed–stack arrangement seems highly appropriate for Nicaragua’s university libraries at the present time because of the high ratio of users to library materials, the makeup of the population of library users, lack of support services, and logistical and financial difficulties with replacement of library materials.
Students using the libraries of UCA and UNAN come from all walks of life. Both universities form a part of the government controlled system of higher education created after the overthrow of the Somoza regime in 1979. Higher education in post–revolutionary Nicaragua was held to be a right of all, and the universities began to function under a system of open admissions coordinated by a central government agency. A sharp diminution in the quality of primary and secondary education and the expansion of the privilege of higher education resulted in a general lowering of academic standards and standards of university behavior. This larger and more socially diverse group of students has been less prepared to treat library collections with respect. Mutilation and theft of library materials are serious problems. Comparing the relative significance of a theft or act of mutilation in the American and Nicaraguan contexts shows the necessity of taking special measures to defend the collections in the latter.
In the United States, if the reference librarian finds an article ripped out of an encyclopedia, an interlibrary loan request will typically be generated for replacement pages which are then tipped in to the damaged volume — an arrangement which does not please the eye, but which at least restores the lost information. If a book turns up missing, a variety of means exist to purchase its replacement or something similar; infrequently does a library in the United States face the unhappy prospect of losing unique information forever (except in the case of special collections, rare books and archives). The elements necessary for compensating for the loss of information are trained staff, interlibrary finding tools, photoreproduction services, cooperative libraries, well-stocked book stores and jobbers, mail delivery, and money.
In Nicaragua, first of all the money is hard to come by. During this period many libraries had no funds in their budgets except for salaries. Were a library to have an acquisitions budget in the national currency, the córdoba (replaced by new córdobas in 1989 and gold crdobas in 1990–1991), the small size of Nicaragua’s internal book market would limit the utility of the funds. For those items that have to be ordered from outside the country, foreign exchange is necessary, and this also involves international mail and customs complications. With few exceptions, collections are at present donation–driven, which means they are subject to the luck of the draw; it is very difficult to solicit specific titles. The common American practice of identifying the need for a book and then placing an order with a publisher is an experience all too infrequent for Nicaraguan acquisitions librarians.
Interlibrary finding tools like union lists and union catalogs do not exist, which means that attempting to locate materials is a matter of direct inquiry to individual libraries. Traveling from library to library searching for a specific item is an unattractive option under the best of circumstances; but given that public transportation is poor within Managua and extremely difficult between cities, and that a university vehicle is not usually at one’s disposal, it represents a real odyssey for any Nicaraguan librarian. Even to place a telephone call to another library is often difficult, in that one may have to wait an hour or more for an off–campus line, and then getting into the phone system at the other end is often difficult as well. Were the item to be located in another library, most libraries do not have photocopy services (Both the UCA and UNAN libraries lacked access to photocopying at this time, which may in itself have increased the incentive for mutilation). Commercial copying services are available, but they are prohibitively expensive and using them necessitates taking materials off–campus. Last but not least, the national mail service is slow and unreliable, and valuable things tend to disappear in transit.
What differentiates INCAE’s library from those of UCA and UNAN is that it is a private college serving a small resident population of elite M.B.A. students, more acculturated to higher education than some of the university students. There is tighter social control over the use of the collection because the librarians are more likely to know the students personally and, given the design of the library, are also well able to observe their use of the collection. Photocopy service is available to library patrons, further diminishing the incentive for mutilation. Moreover, INCAE is funded from abroad; it has an acquisitions budget in dollars adequate to its needs and thus can purchase replacement books if necessary or order replacement pages from a library in the U.S. or from its sister institution in Costa Rica. In short, the range of possibilities is completely different from that of the other academic libraries in Nicaragua.
A library’s economic circumstances, the institutional culture in which it operates, and the aptitudes and attitudes of its users are reflected in the kind and quality of access it may give to information. The university libraries of Nicaragua must, given their resources and patrons, concentrate on defending the collection, with the library personnel serving an essentially curatorial role; whereas INCAE, with greater resources and a different sort of patron, can afford to concentrate more on access and outreach, with a concomitantly greater emphasis on reference service and bibliographic instruction as part of its mission.
A closed–stack library implies a different relationship between library staff and patrons than exists in an open–stack library. In the U.S. the profession is attempting to banish the restrictive library where the librarian serves as permission–giver to the supplicant user. The ideal librarian is seen to be approachable, affable, proactive in meeting user needs, and inviting to user questions. Many times the American reference librarian does not simply give the patron a direct answer to a question but also serves as a guide to the library’s resources and methods of access, treating the whole library as an open territory, thus encouraging the patron to make greater independent use of the library.
The closed’stack library places the patron clearly in the role of a supplicant. All interaction with the collection must be mediated by a circulation assistant, who may be the only person available for assistance in using the catalog as well. Generally one must use the catalog to identify a specific library item to be paged through the people at the circulation desk. The possibility of serendipity is much diminished when the opportunity to peruse the shelves is unavailable. Thus the patron’s interaction with the available universe of information in the library’s holdings is more static and passive than it is in an open–stack library. This passivity may breed frustration and, not infrequently, an adversarial relationship between the patron and the library staff.
A closed collection affects the course of the library’s institutional development by placing special importance on two elements of the library staff: cataloging and circulation. Of these two areas, the former receives the higher priority. The strength of Nicaraguan libraries is often to be found in their technical services departments. Typically the staff who catalog, classify, and process the books are the heart of the library’s staff, the most experienced and knowledgeable of its workers. The technical services staff is generally much larger than the reference staff. For example, during 1987–1989 UCA had no reference staff whatsoever but had a head of technical services, a cataloging revisor, three catalogers, and two support staff for processing. UNAN in Managua had two full–time reference staff, a head of technical services, and eight catalogers, and several support personnel in technical services.
Once again, INCAE is quite different. Of its four full–time staff, all participated in both reference and technical services, since their desks are in the open library area and thus always accessible to the patrons (and with a view of the collections). With their much larger student populations and more straitened circumstances, the organizational emphasis in UCA and UNAN is on establishing and maintaining bibliographic control over the collection that exists rather than upon outreach and public service to patrons, an emphasis which seems to me entirely appropriate to their situation. The card catalog, as the principal instrument of bibliographic control, thus continues to grow by accretion over the entire institutional life of the library, in good times and in bad.
One hopes that the availability of computer technology and external assistance will not create the same rush to automate that has marked the development of American libraries. The card catalog seems admirably appropriate bibliographic technology in the Nicaraguan context. It is easily maintained and relatively comprehensible to the average library user as well as to the library staff itself. It also works when the power goes out (as often happens) and will not succumb to mysterious computer viruses or other breakdowns. Appropriate use of computer technology in such library environments lies more in the enhancement of catalog card production and building archival records rather than in full–scale automation of the catalog itself.
The circulation staff is the other key factor in a closed–stack library, but its cultivation has been rendered more difficult through lack of adequate funding and the disproportionate impact of high inflation on the lowest scale salaries. In UCA, for example, the circulation clerks were generally second– or third–year high school students, who were paid very little. The circulation staff typically had high turnover, which lead to chaos in the circulation files. There is little hope for this situation to improve until economic resources establish an incentive for staff retention. Great demands continue to be placed on circulation staff, and for the near future it seems that they will carry out the public services mission of the library; but the cultivation and retention of cataloging staff will remain the cardinal personnel priority for Nicaraguan academic libraries.
For the time being, the closed stack is emblematic of the Nicaraguan library profession’s primary responsibility to control and maintain the libraries’ resources, defending them until such time as greater funding is available to promote their use. A library profession shaped in a situation dominated by such factors will of necessity develop a different set of emphases in its development than a profession in a country like the U.S. The closed–stack arrangement is a product of certain institutional, social, and material conditions; and it is also a creator and reinforcer of a distinct library culture in the Nicaraguan context. Although alternative modes within the same national context are possible, as is shown by the example of INCAE, these depend upon levels of financial resources and a cooperative library consciousness among their patrons not available at present to the university libraries. What excited my admiration as a visiting librarian in Nicaragua was the way the profession, in the face of great obstacles, reaffirmed a basic library principle: materials must be conserved. This strenuous work of defending the collection for future access has given the profession its mission and shape. The growth of Nicaragua’s libraries and of the library profession there depends on these very acts of accumulation, cataloging, and protection; in the current context this cannot be seen as other than heroic work.
Frank J. Lepkowski is Assistant Professor, Kresge Library, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan.
© 1992 Rosary College.