Education digital libraries management

Abstract

PurposeThis work aims to report the experience of implementing a university digital library by introducing all the technical/administrative and scientific production in the education field.Design/methodology/approachThe paper describes the process of conception, information architecture, the steps and methodology for structuring and establishing of the Digital Library of the Faculty of Education of the State University of Campinas (BDE – FE/UNICAMP), with the partnership of the UNICAMP Libraries System (SBU/UNICAMP), which manages the Nou‐Rau software and stores the Digital Library of UNICAMP (BDU). It also identifies the skills and abilities the information professional must have, concerning the definition of criteria for the evaluation and selection of documents to be scanned, and establishes management procedures for the implementation of services derived from this new tool for retrieving information in the educational area.FindingsThe paper finds that the constitution of a multidisciplinary staff and the skills and abilities required of an information professional involved in designing digital libraries is the object of discussion in several forums. The technical‐scientific skills are the most important ones, since this professional must be able to act in a changing environment, from an analogical to a digital culture. The attitude of the information professional, always related to a strictly technical situation, observed along this career's development, also goes through changes, and demands a professional who is a manager, a leader, visionary and strategist or, in other words, a real agent of changes.Originality/valueThe purpose of the BDE – FE/UNICAMP is to store and make electronically available to users the production of professors, students, employees (technicians) and the administration staff, generated within the Faculty. The implementation of this source of research, therefore, meets the expectation of the users and helps to spread the information.