1. LIBRARY SYSTEM OF COLOMBIA HUGO ALBARRACÍN halbarba@gmail.com
It’s a pleasure for our group to be here today with you .
We will do a general description of Colombian libraries and their current situation.
OFFICIAL NAME: Republic of Colombia is the only South American country with both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines.
Colombia has borders with five countries: Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Panama.
We work in Republic Bank in Bogota and Comfenalco Libraries in Medellin.
HUGO ALBARRACÍN
ANDRES TAMAYO
WILLIAM MONROY

2. National Library System
Biblored (Library Network)
Comfenalco Library Division
Libraries Network of Banco de la República
The Library Luis Angel Arango has 28 branches at the national level an includes with more than two million examples.
Medellin, second largest city in Colombia, with a total population around three million.
The Public library infrastructure in Medellin has 38 thirty-eight public libraries (17 seventeen depend on the government, 21 twenty-one on the private sector, specifically on the Family Compensation Bureaus).
COMFENALCO is a Family Compensation Bureau with its own library system.

3. 26% municipalities without libraries
PUBLIC LIBRARIES
Public Library Plan
1200 Public Libraries
26% municipalities without libraries
The Public Library Plan is planning to cover the entire country and improve reading habits and resources.
We have around 1,200 twelve hundred libraries in our country, covering 74 seventy four % of the territory and population.
The Public libraries have a difficult job because they must satisfy the needs of the users (Students, researchers, readers, and others.) with limited budgets that, in the majority of the cases are not sufficient to cover the necessities.
Actually, the public library system has improved in the last 15 fifteen to 20 twenty years.
There are small networks of public libraries, with methods of service and common goals and objectives, such as to cover the 26 twenty-six % of the municipalities that don’t have libraries.

4. 2.4 Books per person per year
National Reading Plan
2.4 Books per person per year
Electronic Library
Local Information Services
Reading Promotion Activities
Loan Materials
Services for Disabled Users
Newspaper rooms & journal sections
The rate of reading in Colombia is 2.4 books per person a year,
a rate that is far from equaling the rate of the developed nations.
Public libraries take into account the comfort of users,
the construction of practical buildings, and the extension of services to special populations. 
Also the lending services have been improving and increasing in the last 10 years,
which permits the readers to enjoy more reading at home.

5. UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 36 Public 40 Private 2 Public 2 Private
University libraries (Public and private) have a great services for university students, they cover the bibliographical needs.
University library development received further impetus in 1969 when ICFES (Colombian Institute to support the Higher Education) began to provide financial assistance to University Libraries.
This Institute has, among its responsibilities, inspection and supervision over higher education and the provision of technical, economic and administrative assistance to universities and libraries.
University libraries in Colombia are grouped in institutions named CRES (Regional Center of Higher Education). There are five CRES in the entire country. 
Casa de la Lectura Infantil
4 Faculties of library science
2 Public
2 Private

6. Special Services for the Community
Traveling boxes
Services to disabled
Cataloguing
Accessible libraries
Library Parks
The national programme for libraries should contribute to shaping a national system of libraries, which would require some additional actions.
This system should be comprised, in addition to public libraries (national, departmental, municipal network BR and the network boxes Family Compensation) for the school library system, driven by the education ministries and secretariats of regional education.
Coordination between public libraries and schools is essential. The libraries of the capitals and cities should conduct outreach and promotion of reading, that the national government would stop completely at these levels.
Equal up to them the impetus to travelers mechanisms boxes, that address urban separated from libraries, and special public as the sick, detainees in prisons, etc.
From a technical standpoint, it should focus on cataloguing the National Library and the Library Luis Angel Arango, so as to save almost all the costs of cataloging the country.