Information society and information technology: The situation of the public libraries in Buenos Aires city and surrounding areas, Argentina

SummaryThe article studies the use of new technologies to provide high value-added services, in the context of public libraries in Buenos Aires and surrounding areas. It presents a diagnosis of the current situation, aiming to determine whether these information units are prepared to respond to the needs of the community they serve within the information society. A survey with closed questions is administered based on the following categories: general information, resources, library automation, bibliographic control, networks integration, electronic services, and financing sources. Seventy-three responses were provided by the libraries studied. The analysis verifies the lack of standards looking towards information exchange and the distributed processing of information, the absence of information quality control, and the limited exploitation of new information and communication technologies.