LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN Demographics Background Jesus Lau, Ph.D. Universidad Veracruzana World Library and Information Congress, 69th IFLA General Conference and Council, Africa, Asia & Oceania, and Latin America & Caribbean Workshop Berlin, Germany, August 7, 2003, Thursday, 13:30-17:30

DEMOGRAPHICS OF LATIN AMERICA Countries Population Demographic growth Languages Share more similarities than differences million 2% Spanish, Portuguese, French History, culture, religion

SOCIO-ECONOMIC OVERVIEW Undergoing economic structural reforms Market oriented measures Enjoys economic growth 4.1% expected growth Close trade links with North America GDP related to size of territory

LARGE GDP COUNTRIES

MID-SIZE GDP COUNTRIES

SMALL GDP COUNTRIES

TELECOMM PROGRESS Telephones Cellular phones Satellites 32 million 24 million 34

TELECOMM LARGE LA COUNTRIES

TELECOMM MID-SIZE COUNTRIES COUNTRIES PHONES SATELLITES TV TV ´000 BROADCAST SETS STATIONS “000 Dominican R Ecuador Guatemala Peru ,000 Uruguay Total 2, ,868

TELECOMM SMALL LA COUNTRIES

CYBER PROGRESS Users Web pages Internet nodes Internet growth 5-8 million 150 thousand 191, % Btwn

GLOBAL REACH Internet integrates Latin America Communication is easier and cheaper Creates greater information awareness Makes more information services available Contributes to have world class information users

LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT Countries have made library progress Academic libraries are the best Internet is more used at academic libraries School and public libraries are scarce Information is still paper-based

LIBRARY PICTURE Libraries Librarians LIS Schools Journals Published Newspapers 40,000 30, ,000 1,000

INFORMATION USERS´ BACKGROUNG Middle to upper class Urban Young Usually a student or college graduate Lower income stratas (largest segment of population) are out of library reach

CHALLENGE: INCREASE LOCAL TOUCH Provide services to the illiterate population Gather and organize local information Join efforts or face mass media overpower Define national information policies Increase information awareness among population

CONCLUSIONS Latin America enjoys economic growth Telecommunications are growing Libraries have improved Global reach: Internet makes LA libraries part of the world Local reach: LA libraries require better access to local data Challenge: how to meet info demands of lower income sectors of society

Let’s plan a more inclusive information future for all groups of society. Thanks! Jesús Lau Presentation available at: *Data comes from different statistical sources used for a paper presented at ALA Conference, please see full paper for bibliographic details.