WMY2000 NewsLetter 2
Bordeauxthèque
by J.F. Jaulent, BMI director
Bordeauxthèque is a documentation
service for mathematicians and computer
scientists working in French speaking universities. It is
supported by the BMI
(Research Library for Mathematics and Computer Science of
Bordeaux).
This service has been growing extensively since its foundation in
1988 by J.L.
Joly, and now concerns over forty African universities. As a
result of its
success it has obtained the support of CIRUISEF and CIMPA which
will cover
most of its expenditure in the future.
Operating a modern research library requires a big investment and
continuous
expenditure. So in spite of the fact that, especially in
mathematics, up to
date documentation is of outmost importance, this documentation is
often non
available even to active mathematics departments, because of
financial reasons.
The aim of Bordeauxthèque is to help the researchers of
countries lacking
proper bibliographical resources, by offering them access to
scientific
literature at no cost in a simple, regular and efficient way. To
do this,
Bordeauxthèque relies on the remarquable wealth of the BMI.
How does Bordeauxthèque work ?
The documentation service Bordeauxthèque produces two
volumes a year, each
consisting of 250 pages of summaries of about 60 periodicals which
have been
chosen according to the wishes of our correspondents (for
consideration, a
periodical has to be requested by at least two correspondents).
These summaries
allow our users to ask us photocopies of recent papers, which are
then made by
our staff and sent to our correspondents free of charge Each
request must be
checked by the head of the correspondent's department in order to
avoid sending the paper twice. For this, some request forms are
sent with the
two volumes of the summaries.
Bordeauxthèque also publishes on a regular basis two lists
: a list of
fundamental books covering the main topics of mathematics ; and a
list of
titles recently acquired by the BMI. This keeps researchers
informed on the
ressources available in Bordeaux. Moreover our users acknowledge
with pleasure
that our library's staff is always ready to answer any queries
concerning addresses of journals, references, and so on...
Some data
The three volumes published by Bordeauxthèque in 1988, 1989
and 1990 have
been distributed to some 70 French speaking universities
(essentially in
Africa). Each subsequent issue has been updated with more
summaries at the
request of our correspondents : the two biannual volumes produced
since 1991
consist of the summaries of about 60 journals. The number of
photocopies sent
by the service has steadily increased since its creation, as
follows :
For instance, in 1991, some 668 requests from 153 researchers have
been
answered, each request amounting to an average of 13 copies. Of
these requests
517 concerned very recent summaries.
Plans for the future
From the first six years of activity, it appears that
Bordeauxthèque has
been a success and has proven that there is a real need for such a
service. Of
course it is clear that there is room for improvement in its
perfomances. For
instance, starting 1994, we will be able to collect by scanner the
information
on the summaries we publish. Our publications will be available on
electronic
support. However one has to keep in mind that most of our
correspondents do not
have access to electronic mail ...
To conclude we shall mention that Bordeauxthèque runs on a
budget of
about 70.000FF. Even though this amount only represents between 5
and 10 % of
the library's total expenditure, it allows the BMI to count among
its
users more out -of -town researchers than mathematicians working
in Bordeaux.
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