University of The Andes Library Services - The Coming of Age of SERBIULA

The Coming of Age of SERBIULA

In 1977 the libraries of the faculties of Sciences, Economic Sciences, and Engineering, all three located within the same campus, were merged into the Integrated Library of Sciences, Economics and Engineering (BIECI for its acronym in Spanish). This was the first unification of different library services that took place within the University. A project proposal for taking this initiative to a higher level was put forth the University Council a couple of years later. The project submitted the comprehensive integration of all the university’s library services into a greater single one. It was swiftly approved on March 6, 1980 and the resulting body was simply named University of Los Andes Library Services (SERBIULA). SERBIULA had and still has the responsibility of integrating all the existing library services and keeping them up-to-date with the University demands. Additionally, SERBIULA created and manages the university’s Library System, whose coordination follows a decentralized approach as a consequence of having the University campuses scattered all around the city. Another goal is improving the efficiency of human, technical and financial resources.