Moldova before and after the launching of SIBIMOL

Alexei Rău
The Author and Director of the project SIBIMOL

The day of launching of the national system SIBIMOL can be seen as a demarcation line between what our librarianship was until this moment and what follows beyond this symbolic demarcation, and real at the same time.

The novelty of this system is the generator of perspectives, it honours the horizon of waiting of the librarians and users, of the society as a whole and at the same time it is expanded, it is an opening to the future. In this connection I would like to outline some essential determinations of this project.

First of all, the SIBIMOL, in the conditions of an efficient management, could make an important contribution to the building of the informational society in Moldova by promoting the collective intelligence and creativity and what Pierre Levy calls "new economy of ideas." The Integrated Information System of Moldova’s Libraries will become the basis of a virtual library of Moldova. Being a collective creation of the participating libraries, it comes to offer the integrated access to the global fund which includes the collections of all libraries in the republic, and will signify a new principled level of access of society to information and knowledge. In this context, I feel obliged to say that from this point of view we can draw a demarcation line at the country level too, which separates in order to continue Moldova librarianship up to the launching of SIBIMOL and that of after this inaugural moment. The syntagm "before and after SIBIMOL” is, for our level, what means for history the dividing of the calendar in two eras.

A consequence of this fact would be the creation of an optical change vis-à-vis the role and prestige of library institutions in Moldova. For some time this role was not realized, nor recognized by the society as a measure of importance. There were years when the National Librarianship Council pleaded for the including of libraries in the national directorate of the information society and often our efforts ended with failure. Now, the libraries have their place in the national strategy of building the information society "Electronic Moldova” and the integrated system SIBIMOL is meant to be the pivot, the infrastructure of librarianship information space. Its completion and implementation are both an act of fulfilment and a promise. Through this project we have placed ahead us and we can occur from our own future.

Through SIBIMOL our librarianship can not just go through a change as regards its image in Moldavian society, but it gains the place on the librarianship world. And there is no exaggeration in this affirmation. The main element of technological innovation which brings this system is the web cataloguing. And I found when I studied the international experience that there isn’t anywhere in the world such technological method. As a result, we bring our contribution part to the development of librarianship. It sounds perhaps pompous. But it’s the real truth. It's the case when our perception and mentality must surpass the complex of inferiority that holds us under its sword, and be able to breathe the free air of the equals among equals. SIBIMOL would be to sanction this verticality and our place of sadness in the sky of the librarianship world.

SIBIMOL is a challenge as regards the way of being a librarian and of thinking about the librarianship in Moldova. It will raise our work at a noble level, it will give attractiveness, intelligence and vital tonus. Already during the testing of the system modules, the cataloguing module in particular, our colleagues, breathing with relief, have resulted that finally we have in libraries of Moldova a genuine informational technology. This second breath fortifies and wings us on the new road we are starting now.

I want to thank everybody who helped me and have contributed to the creation, elaboration and implementation of this system (Andrei Suşcov, Valentina Chitoroagă, Liviu Rău, Ala Panici and the colleagues from the participating libraries). We express our gratitude to Foundation SOROS Moldova (executive director Victor Ursu, programme coordinators Mariana Alexandri and Dumitru Chitoroagă) the offered grant helped us to create this project. We bring thanks to the Government of the Republic of Moldova for supporting through the circulation of the Prime Minister concerning the participation of the financing the works on SIBIMOL project, to the public central and local authorities and founders of libraries, to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Last but not least thanks to IMESOFT SA (general director Dan Marinescu) for the creation of the software SIBIMOL, the experts of the project Dan Matei and Liviu Dediu.

Let us have good luck.