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Pamela André Michal Demeš Tomaz Bartol Aino Kuik Marcela Chrenekova Ilona Dobelniece Ivanka Demireva Ivo Hoch Ctibor Perlin Krystyna Kocznorowska Participants Time schedule Photo documentation < Back |
COUNTRY REPORT ON THE STATE OF AGRICULTURAL
INFORMATICS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC
Ctibor PERLIN Director, Institute of Agricultural and Food Information Londynska 55, CS-120 00 Prague 2 P.0. Box 39 CZECH REPUBLIC Phone: 42-2-66312811, 42-2-253647, 42-2-250051 FAX: 42-2-66312812, 42-2-242539 or 38, 42-2-663-12812 e-mail : perlin@uzpi.agrec.cz ABSTRACT The aim ofthe paper is to make participants to the Roundtable acquainted with the state of agricultural informatics in the Czech Republic. Attention is devoted to some aspects of international cooperation (international exchange of publications, participation in international information systems etc.). Some major traits in development in our Institute since the last Roundtable and problems arisen are also presented. International egchange of publications and documents (AGLINET) Both Libraries of the Institute of Agricultural and Food Information (IAFI) - the Central Agricultural and Forestry Library (CAFL) and the Central Food Library (CFL) - continued their exchanging publications and information with other member libraries of the Joint Program of Cooperation as well as fulfilling the tasks resulting from the membership in the international network of agricultural librariesAGLINET.Annually they managed to handle 30 requests received from these libraries, especially from libraries in Belgium, Belorussia, USA and India. We started to make better use of the possibilities of AGLINET for both internal (IAFI staff) and external users. But we cannot be fully satisfied with the state of AGLINET utilizing in our country, most probably because of uncompleted process of transformation in the sphere of agricultural research in the Czech Republic. Being already connected to the INTERNET, we believe that this fact will have a positive impact on the further development ofinternational exchange ofpublications with both Czech and foreiD partners. Personal contacts and short-term stays Three of our statf took part in the international one-day workshop AGROINFOS'96 held in Nitra (the Slovak Republic) in autumn last year. The workshop was, above all, focused on questions concerning the cooperation of Eastern and Central European information centers with FAO. On the first day we were very pleased to meet personally the head of the FAO information division Mr. Manastl, representative of the FAO Olfce for Central and Eastern Europe in Budapest Mr. Z. Karnicki, the IAALD (International Association of Agricultural Librarians and Documentalists) president Mr. Jan Van der Burg, the head of the AGRIS-FAO Center Ms H. Schmidt and other participants to the workshop. On the second day organizers of this professional event arranged for us a few short visits - to the University Library of the Agricultural University in Vienna, the National Agricultural Library and documentation center in Budapest. These visits were interesting but very short. In spring 1996 Ms L. Adamirova of the Central Food Library spent three months in the USA in the framework of the Soros Foundation-Library of Congress Librarian Intern Program. Her stay in the Library of Congress and the National Agricultural Library was very helpful to her and she learzit a lot about the run of today's library, the automation ofLibrary procedures, the INTERNET and its senrvices. Beginning November 1996, another member of our staff Ing. N. Konickova (the Information Systems Department) has beeen working for a limited period in the FAO Library in Rome. She works there as a winner of the professional competition and her stay in Italy is considered to be a great contríbution to her further professional development. Cooperation in the sphere oi development of information technologies and systems In the Central Agricultural and Forestry Library works on the automatic processing of the Library holdings continued, the smaller holdings of the other Library (the Central Food Library) have already been computerized. Both parts of former Czechoslovakia the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic - are taking part in the creation ofa union catalogue in the framework ofthe CASLIN (Czech and Slovak Library Information Network) project. Thanks to the high quality ofcatalogue records produced by the CAFL, the mentioned Library became a member library of the CASLIN at the end of 1996 and part of its holdings is thus available over the INTERNET Translation of selected publications We suggest to select important national food and agricultural legislation documents and translate them into English. You will hear more about that from me later. Participation in international information systems Our Institute is a producer ofthe Czech Agricultural Bibliography, the I996 additions to that database representing 761 I entries. Sefected entries from the mentioned database are each year contributed to the National Bibliography produced by the National Library in Prague. In I 996, this contribution amounted to 2381 entries. This file is available on the INTERNET but Czech language remains its main problem. Now it is time to mention the Czech food database ALIMIS-CS which serves as a complimentary product to the world known database FSTA (Food Science and Technology Abstracts) and is also produced by our Institute. It contains bibliographic entries covering Czech and Slovak journal articles, books, patents and standards dealing with food products analysis and production and is intended for Czech users. Origins of the mentioned database go back to the mid eighties (1985) and, at present, it contains 33000 entries, the 1996 additions being 2400 entries. Besides that, we have been taking part in the building of the AGRIS database since its very beginning in l975. Since that time until the end of 1992 about 2000 bibliographic entries for Czechoslovak agricultural literature was annually sent to the AGRIS system. Afteer the split of the Czechoslovak Republic into two separate states, the number of records inputted by our institute - a representative ofthe independent Czech Republic - somewhat decreased as a result of the smaller number of primary sources published in the smaller newly -born state. At this point I would like to point out that a profession of a documentalist consisting in choosing a proper article and subsequent abstracting activities requires an expert with the excellent knowledge of both subject and language. That can be testified by the fact that ail our documentalists who applied for fellowship in foreign libraries were successful. On the one hand, it is a pleasant fact if it concerns the evaluation of their professionalism, on the other hand, it can cause some troubles in the run of the department because searching for a replacement for a well-trained worker is very difl6cult under the present system of remuneration oFresearch and information workers. We consider both bibliographic records and abstracts of great importance to users. A high quality abstract can serve as a Quide in a primary source and can help users to save their time which can be devoted to the studying ofprofessional literature To be short,. a good abstract has got a great informative value. We are very pleased by an increasing number of both abstracted bibliographic records and bibliographic records themselves produced in our national input center for AGRIS. The l995 input represented 1300 records, of which 389 were abstracted ones (30 %). In 1996,37 per cent ofthe total number of 1523 records produced that year were provided by abstracts. Beginning January 1997, new records for AGRIS (up- to-dated each month) will be made accessible over the Internet on the International Atomic Energy Aoency server. In connection with that fact I would like to emphasize the necessity of an increasing number ofabstracted records once more. Besides our active participation in AGRIS, we also prepare input for another FAO system CARIS (Current Aòricultural Research Information System). The importance of active participation consists not only in inputting records but also in using its output. In accordance with the agreement concluded between representatives of our institute and CRIS/USDA (Current Research Information System) our records prepared for CARIS go then to CRIS where they form a separate subfile called CZARIS (Czech Agricultural Research Information System). The Czech Republic became a CARIS member in autumn 1993. After overcoming some initial problems connected with the mastering of new rules for processing, the cooperation with CARIS started to develop successfiully. In 1993 an input of 50 records was created, in 1994 it was 140 records, in 1995 93 records, and in I 996 we have created 347 records. High quality of Czech input is widely appreciated and our country was chosen to test new input program called CARIS Plus. Food section of our Institute takes part in the building of the commercial database FSTA produced by the international company IFIS headquarted in Reading, LTK. Since 1967 we have inputted thousands ofrecords for articles published in periodicals in our and other Central and Eastern European countries. Afier political changes in I 989, the number of published journals dropped considerably and that fact, of course, found its reflection in a decreasing number of our records for FSTA. In the period of 1992-1995 about 140 records, on average, were annually sent to that database and in 1996 we inputted 239 entries in English. Retrospective and "current awareness" literature searches with monthly or quarterly periodicity are provided from all these databases, and also from smaller Czech ones. The aim of all our documentation activities described above is to make the whole professional public familiar with the contributions made by Czech authors. Connection to the Internet The origins of our efort to be connected to the INTERNET go back to 1995. In that year we started to carry out a quick communication with Czech and foreign partners via e-mail. Electronic mail helped us a lot in organizing the fifth Roundtable and, at present, we cannot imagine our work without using this effcient way of messaging. We use it also for joining the professional public by means of electronic conferences and data transmission between our Institute and information systems AGRIS, CARIS and CRIS/USA. WWW, Telnet and FTP applications were installed on selected computers at the end ofthe last year. Connection to the INTERNET has also had a positive impact on the work of our Libraries and this improvement can be seen mainly in the sphere ofinternational cooperation. We are able to provide higlter quality reference services and look for documents which are not owned by our Libraries. We are glad to say that the vast majority of Czech big libraries have already been connected to the INTERNET, which resulted in more efficient interlibrary loan services. We are learning how to look at home pages of our exchange partners and how to search catalogues of big libraries. The usage of the INTERNET services enables us to to improve acquisition work and its coordination and the exchange of journals with other agricultural libraries. Our task for the nearest future is to create our own www home page and thus make the professional public familiar with our services. We are going to enable people to access that part of our holdings which has already been computerized on the INTERNET. Publishing activities Primary information provided by our libraries and information systems department (database department) can be used by the staff of study departments as a basis for producing various forms of study materials and expert information according to our users requests. We also publish a number of information periodicals containing brief items of information for entrepreneurial and professional sphere. Thanks to these publications information from foreign sources are accessible to Czech readers in their mother tongue. Please let me make you acquainted with some of them. Brief information from the world, especially from the fields of agricultural policy, economics, science and technology is provided by SIGI (Signal Information). This title appears 26 times a year, each issue being about 20 pages. Agricultural Topical News (Zemedelske Aktuality) contain interesting brief items of information as well as longer "review-type articles" summarizing the information taken over from Czech and foreign literature. Our Institute was also charged by the Belgium-based American Soybean Association to publish the Czech version of the publication InPulse. Foreign information sources serve us as a basis for our Study information (Studijni informace), monothematic publications covering various fields ofagriculture. Our food section produces Information on World Food Production (Informtace o svetovem potravinarstvi) containing hot information from foreign literature (published 10 times a year) and Food Technology News (Potravinarske Aktuality) appearing in 8 separate series and containing translations of selected articles from foreign professional literature (eight series altogether about 2500 pages annually) Changes in our Libraries since the last Roundtable As the most important changes have been already described in previous chapters, please let me make only a brief summarization. The most important changes which have occurred in our two Libraries are connection to the INTERNET works on the gradual extension oflibrary holdings automatic processing participation in the CASLIN project preparatory works on making part of our holdings accessible over the INTERNET computer technology improvement Due to Library budget problems we were forced to think about the cancellation of some titles which interest us only marginally. In the CFL we were considering the cancellation of a few periodicals from the field of cosmetics and household and personal products industry. At last we decided to encourage our users interested in these titles to sponsor their purchase. We have managed to gather money from them and to subscribe to these periodicals which are now available for these people in our Library according to an approved scheme. The sponsorship proved to be beneficial to both sides. It helped us to ensure the continuity of the above mentioned periodicals in the CFL and helped users to save their money. In our opinion it can be given as a very good example ofmutually beneficial cooperation. International cooperation and its impact on agricultural informatics Being a relatively small country, we consider international cooperation of great importance to our work. Please let me mention two aspects ofthis kind of a cooperation. The first of these aspects is to make results of research can-ied out by experts in one country accessible to scientists in other countries. This can be done through bibliographic records, especially those provided by abstracts. For that reason it is very important not only to produce as many abstracts as possible, but also ensure their high quality. A high quality abstract brings information on the latest developments in a particular field of science and can help to make authors more "visible" in the world databases and more known in the professional world. It is very important especially at a time when professional contacts are established and experts look for partners for carrying out grant projects. It requires systematic work with authors ofthese articles for whom is necessary to know how to make quality abstracts. Information workers are not experts in a particular field of science, they can only advise as to the good quality of an abstract. We are following the above principles when publishing our ten professional journals- Plant Production, Animal Production, Veterinary Medicine, Agricultural Economics, Forestry, Food Sciences, Agricultural Engineering, Plant Protection, Genetics and P)ant Breeding, Horticultural Science. These publishing activities are generously supported fi·om the financial sources of the Ministry of Agriculture. As I have already mentioned, our aim is to make results oF the Czech agricultural science (and Slovak as well because we continue our cooperation even after the split of the former Czech and Slovak Republic) more known in the world and in the above mentioned journals we publish some articles in English. Articles in Czech and Slovak are provided by detailed English summaries and we encourage our contributors to make high quality abstracts. Another aspect of the cooperation is the sphere of food and agricultural and legislation. In our periodicals we publish information on legislative measures taken throughout the world, mainly in the EU and countries important from the point of view of establishing trade contacts. We also prepare foundation materials for authors of the Czech food and agricultural legislation. Our institute serves as a national information center with the aim to provide information on the state of Czech food legislation. The process of rapprochement of countries of Central and Eastern Europe and liberalization trends in the world and regional trade are important marks of our era and that is a reason why I consider expending cooperation activities in the sphere of legislation to be very beneficial. We gather information concerning the Food Law which is underway and also related regulations and we are ready to provide our foreign partners with them. We would be grateful if our colleagues from Central and Eastern European countries could, in return, supply us with similar ones. As our native lanòuages can be a barrier for understanding it would be useful to ensure translation of these information into Russian or English. For cooperation with other European countries is, of course, preferred English. I kindly ask participants to that roundtable to consider my suggestion as I think that its implementation may help to increase reputation of our institutions. Main problems and their solutions Our suggestions concerning the improvement of cooperation in the sphere of documentation activities and legislation have already been mentioned. Our main problems arise from the limited amount of financial means we receive for the run of our Libraries and other departments. For that reason, our Library holdings are still processed in a CDS/ISIS system - MAKS application (produced by the National Library), which is a little outdated. At present, we are considering the implementation of the library system ALEPH (producer - Israeli company ExLibris) but its price is still high for us. Another problem we are facing now is the issue of space for document storage. We were promised to receive for the year 1997 a certain amount of money intended for completion of our central store construction. This construction is scheduled to be completed in 4-5 years but the sum of allocated money is approved every year. We remain optimists. We have to be careful when considering money allocation between two spheres - primary document purchase and computer technology improvement. None of these two spheres can be neglected. Finding all the resources available and looking for good employees under the present system ofremuneration is becomíng more and more difficult. We are fully aware ofthe task of our Institution to ensure information for the forthcoming "information age"and we believe that this awareness can help us gradually solve all the mentiond problems. |
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