Mexico’s Information Policies at the End of the Millenium

Mexico’s information policies have been adapted to participate in a more global world in the last decade of the millenium. The formal joining of the country to the former GATT, and NAFTA, and several other free trade agreements with Latin American nations has meant changes and adaptations of intellectual property, copyright and flow of information legislation. This in turn has shaped information policies at institutional, county, state and national level. The new legal national information framework is just beginning to impact information servicies of most type of organizations, such as libraries. This paper gives an overview of Mexico’s laws and legal initiatives that will shape the future flow of information in Mexican society in the years to come and the effect in library and information services

Information Competencies: Bridging the North-South Knowledge Gap (Mortenson Distinguished Lecture)

Knowledge is readily available in middle-income developing countries through international information repositories on the Internet. However, most citizens from the Southern Hemisphere do not possess the information skills or information competencies to access, use and understand such knowledge wealth. Most economically evolving developing countries have made progress in education in recent decades, but they still lag behind in information use/generation, such as book and serials production. Their educational systems seem to inhibit the development of information skills, i.e., competencies that are crucial to citizens to benefit from increasing knowledge growth or to cope with ever-present technological innovations and the changing complexities of the world economy. The development of information competencies in Southern countries is critical to reduce North-South gaps, where knowledge inequality is probably the most important among them. In this paper, information development indicators are utilized to illustrate the current knowledge status of countries and the significant role that constructivist educational systems play in the development of information competencies

Indigenous Rarámuris as University Students: Challenges for Information Literacy

Our article describes the experience developing programs for Mexican indigenous students to support their admission and retention as university students. We present an analysis of national perspectives, focusing specifically on the efforts made by The Autonomous University of Chihuahua (UACH), Mexico, with indigenous Rarámuris local project through the Support Program for Indigenous Students (PAEI). In addition to providing benefits related to economics, sport activities, and physical, nutritional and psychological health, PAEI employees concrete actions linked to information literacy, such as academic support, extracurricular advising, tutoring, use of information technology, study techniques, and reading, writing, and learning models. Statistics presented not only document the progress achieved through PAEI, they identify the challenges to be faced

Bibliotecas como sumatoria del Centenario y Bicentenario de México

The economic, social, and political trajectory that Mexico has accomplished from 1810 to 2010 can be summarized in the current development that national information and library services have. In this conference paper, a brief description of the state of the libraries is provided, as well as the development of some factors of the librarianship discipline, such as a synthesis of the book production, among other themes, in order to provide a quantitative overview of the recent developments in libraries, which are cause and product of the historical occurrences at the bicentenary of the Independence of our country from Spain, and the centenary of the Mexican Revolution

Mexico’s Information Policies at the End of the Millenium

Mexico’s information policies have been adapted to participate in a more global world in the last decade of the millenium. The formal joining of the country to the former GATT, and NAFTA, and several other free trade agreements with Latin American nations has meant changes and adaptations of intellectual property, copyright and flow of information legislation. This in turn has shaped information policies at institutional, county, state and national level. The new legal national information framework is just beginning to impact information servicies of most type of organizations, such as libraries. This paper gives an overview of Mexico’s laws and legal initiatives that will shape the future flow of information in Mexican society in the years to come and the effect in library and information services

Information Competencies: Bridging the North-South Knowledge Gap (Mortenson Distinguished Lecture)

Knowledge is readily available in middle-income developing countries through international information repositories on the Internet. However, most citizens from the Southern Hemisphere do not possess the information skills or information competencies to access, use and understand such knowledge wealth. Most economically evolving developing countries have made progress in education in recent decades, but they still lag behind in information use/generation, such as book and serials production. Their educational systems seem to inhibit the development of information skills, i.e., competencies that are crucial to citizens to benefit from increasing knowledge growth or to cope with ever-present technological innovations and the changing complexities of the world economy. The development of information competencies in Southern countries is critical to reduce North-South gaps, where knowledge inequality is probably the most important among them. In this paper, information development indicators are utilized to illustrate the current knowledge status of countries and the significant role that constructivist educational systems play in the development of information competencies

Patron Empowerment to Use Library Gateways in Lid Countries: The Case of Mexico

Information skills empower academic users to take advantage of information resources available worldwide. Countries with less information development (LID) have a challenge to develop these skills among a population that has had limited contact with libraries. New technologies offer the possibility of helping libraries from LID countries to overcome the educational gap of their users. If academic libraries of LID countries take this opportunity, they will convert themselves into real gateways to international information, since their users will be enabled to transit the cyberworld with the proper searching skills. This topic will be discussed using Mexican academic libraries as a case study

Brecha más cognitiva que digital: papel de las habilidades informativas en países emergentes

Ponencias de la Segunda Conferencia internacional sobre brecha digital e inclusión social, celebrada del 28 al 30 de octubre de 2009 en la Universidad Carlos III de MadridLos países de economías emergentes, manifiestan una alta dificultad en desarrollar procesos justos de distribución social del conocimiento, observándose alto beneficio en determinados sectores, quienes concentran el acceso a la información, sucediendo luego una diseminación casi nula hacia entidades, regiones e instituciones ubicadas en lugares o estratos económica y socialmente menos favorecidos. La preocupación por integrar una inclusión social más justa, que se manifieste en la reducción de la brecha digital, es superada por la necesidad de considerar que cuando un sujeto tiene acceso a la información no necesariamente la utiliza de forma sustancial, considerándose para ello la presencia de una brecha cognitiva, misma que demanda el desarrollo de habilidades informativas. El presente trabajo aborda las cuestiones de brecha digital, inclusión social y distribución social del conocimiento como antecedentes a considerar a la brecha cognitiva como fenómeno particular de formas de acceso a la información, presentando algunos datos macrosociales, principalmente de países latinoamericanos, los cuales se pueden relacionar con los principales rasgos de presencia o ausencia de desarrollo de habilidades informativas

Towards Information Literacy Indicators. Conceptual Framework prepared by Ralph Catts and Jesus Lau

Este documento proporciona un marco conceptual básico para la medición de la Alfin y ha sido diseñado para servir de referencia con objeto de facilitar la elaboración de indicadores de alfabetización informacional.Elaborado por Ralph Catts y Jesús LauRevisión técnica por Cristóbal Pasadas Ureña (Universidad de Granada, Biblioteca de la Facultad de Psicología). La presente edición ha sido publicada por el Ministerio de Cultura español en colaboración con UNESCO