Mexico Journal: An Exchange Librarian Reports
Mary A. Donley

When I arrived in Mexico last August, I had several goals —to improve my knowledge of library terms in Spanish, to exchange information about Internet sites, and to find out what Mexicans are reading. Most important, I wanted to build lasting relationships with Mexican librarians. With the help of my hosts, Elsa Ramírez Leyva, director of the Center for Library Research (CUIB) at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM), and Raul Novelo of El Colegio de Mexico, I accomplished most of these goals.

My first visit was to the Benjamin Franklin Library, which is run be the U.S. Information Agency. Their collection is in a modified Dewey Decimal system similar to what we use in Fort Bend County. We compared notes on favorite reference sources—one of our mutual favorites is Current Biography. They also went over their ready reference collection with me including several books on the Mexican government, such as Directorio del Gobierno. Franklin librarian Mabel Cabrera showed me Guia Roji’s home page (http://www.guiaroji.com.mx) with its excellent collection of on-line maps.

I brought them a copy of our Houston Business White Pages. Since my return to Texas, they sent me phone books for Tijuana and Mexico City, a much-needed addition to our phone book collection.

My next visits were to the public library headquarters and four public libraries in the Mexico City area. There are more than 5,000 public libraries in Mexico, all coordinated through the Mexico City headquarters. On these visits, I got great ideas for signage and forms. Also, after visiting several libraries, I have a better idea of what "core collection" means in Mexican libraries. One reference set that I saw at nearly every Mexican library was Diccionario Porrua de la Historia, Biografia, y Geografia de Mexico. Lic. Margarita Carbia and her staff were kind enough to give me copies of their training videos and books describing other activities such as the summer reading program.

One of my goals for this trip was to find out what Mexicans are reading, especially which newspapers. In my informal survey, the most popular newspaper was Reforma, followed by La Jornada. Both of these titles are available on the Internet; however, neither is free.

I spent the second week on the UNAM campus where I took an extensive tour of the main library, including the technical services department. The UNAM libraries use the Aleph system (from Israel) and Library of Congress classification. During my tour, I observed a long line of students renewing their library cards for the fall term.

The National Library of Mexico (Biblioteca Nacional) is also housed on the UNAM campus. They use the Dewey Decimal System and are a Dynix library. This library is similar to our Library of Congress. They maintain copies of most books published in Mexico. They offer extensive resources to researchers, including a library for the blind. One of the treasures of their rare book collection is Queen Isabella of Spain’s original Book of Hours.

I couldn’t leave Mexico without a visit to fellow Texan Daniel Mattes, director of the library at Universidad Anahuac in the State of Mexico. I made a presentation about Fort Bend County Libraries to Anahuac staff and we compared notes on helping students with homework questions.

My final week was spent at El Colegio de Mexico (ColMex). This is another library using the Aleph system and Dewey. ColMex allowed me to observe at their reference desk and I even answered a couple of student questions correctly! Since returning from Mexico, we have consulted the ColMex Web catalog to confirm classification choices for Spanish language materials at our library.

All in all, it was a great visit. I have stayed in touch with almost everyone I met via e-mail. This spring, we hope to host a librarian from El Colegio de Mexico at our library. I encourage anyone with any questions about Mexican libraries to

con-tact me at 281/341-2623 or by e-mail to mdonley@read. fortbend. lib.tx.us. J