Adventist Virtual Library: Strengths and Challenges in

the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Nestor Holmes Ramirez.

I extend a warm greeting to all the ASDAL librarian colleagues. Thank you very much for
allowing me to participate in this conference. My name is Nestor Holmes Ramírez. Currently, I
am the director of the library at the University of Montemorelos in Mexico. The presentation
that I am about to share is titled "Adventist Virtual Library: Strengths and Challenges in the
Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic." This presentation will revolve around my experience as
one of the participating librarians of the Consortium in information resources that works for the
territory of the inter-American division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The resources
offered by this consortium are concentrated on an Internet site published under the name
Adventist Virtual Library.

The inter-American division includes a territory of 37 countries that ranges from Mexico to
Caribbean countries and reaches Venezuela.

It is organized in 24 unions. Its educational system comprises 513 primary and secondary
schools and 13 university-level institutions.

These 13 universities are located: three of them in Mexico, two in Puerto Rico and in the
following countries we find one university per country: Costa Rica, Colombia, Cuba, Jamaica,
Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Regarding the academic population, there are 130,187 school-age students and 12,900
university students. Regarding teachers, the figures are 1,538 university professors and 8,432
primary and secondary school teachers.

The Adventist Virtual Library is a project to support the educational system of the Inter-
American Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. According to the information published
on its website, the main objectives are to acquire and manage sources of information relevant
to the educational plans of the schools and educational institutions of the division and to
provide users with access to said sources. Users of the Adventist Virtual Library include students
from elementary school through college. There are also teachers and researchers affiliated with
Adventist institutions.

What are the characteristics of the information service that this Adventist virtual library has?
Well, initially we can say that it has an interface that presents the information in the three main
languages spoken in the division, which are Spanish, English and French. The first level of
organization that is presented on the page is by the content profile: Junior Library, Youth
Library, Academic Library, Library for Educators and then the more specialized contents are
presented. 10 databases are offered for school age, primary and secondary school. It contains
23 databases for university and graduate students.

The most representative providers are: Ebsco, ProQuest and eBook. The sources of financing
that make this consortium sustainable are the following: The division contributes with 11.3%,
the unions with 20% and the universities with 68.7%. However, it should be noted that two
universities, due to their economic and political situations in the territory in which they are
located, cannot contribute and the same also occurs with four unions. Since this project began,
it has had three coordinators. Currently who is responsible for coordinating the Consortium is
Olga Pérez. She works from Puerto Rico. She, too, is a retired librarian and dedicates two hours
a day to this activity.

The pandemic was a special circumstance for all librarians as it was for many sectors of society.
The fact that presence in the physical spaces of the library was not possible became a great
challenge. There was an emphasis on remote services and the availability and use of digital
information sources. It is there then where the Adventist Virtual Library became a fundamental
support to face this circumstance generated by the pandemic.

The collections of digital books have been particularly valuable: eBooks. Especially in Spanish
and English. This allowed us to identify content for the topics that are addressed in each subject
that is taught in our universities. In the case of the University of Montemorelos, we reviewed
the contents of the undergraduate subjects and a list of digital books available in the Adventist
Virtual Library was prepared. Later, after this review and after preparing the document, it was
sent as a suggestion to the teachers in charge of each subject.

For example, here in this presentation we have on the left side a sample of the submission that
was made to the theology area and on the right side there is a sample of the first part of the list
sent to the subjects in charge of the nursing area. The positive response of the teachers to this
information and the usage statistics indicate that it was a successful experience and of good use
of the resources offered by the Consortium.

Here it is also important to point out that for some universities in the Inter-American division,
the only sources of digital information that they can offer or that they can offer are those
obtained from this consortium. They would surely not be able to access this content if they
tried to acquire it independently. It is then a project of solidarity and generosity towards
institutions with fewer economic resources and a scenario of mutual support for the fulfillment
of the mission of each of the universities.

As an example of this scenario of mutual support, which we highlight as a strength is that

during the pandemic, greater communication was generated among the Consortium's librarians
to resolve concerns regarding content, information on training, and access to information
sources. We have a group on WhatsApp called Inter-America Librarians that became a forum
for dialogue and collective growth.
From these dialogues, new activities like zoom meetings were generated. Activities such as the
copyright workshop and a discussion on good practices in Adventist university libraries in the
context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The discussion was held in April of this year and focused on four thematic points. The four
points were: collections, infrastructure, services and human resources. The interesting thing is
that this event was held by librarians from Inter-America and had the participation of the South
American division specifically from Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia. So, it was a stage
to get to know each other as Adventist librarians.

Another strength of this consortium that must be highlighted is that it has the support of the
department of education of the inter-American division. The leaders of this department have
negotiated before the executive committee so that there is a commitment from the different
institutions of the church and obtain the financial support that corresponds to them. In this
way, the sustainability of the Consortium is guaranteed.

As I mentioned previously, the current coordinator of the Consortium is Olga Pérez, she has a
master’s in information science. She began her duties in January 2020 and her leadership has
allowed librarians to be more involved in decision-making. Some of these decisions include the
incorporation of a statistical tool that indicates the use of the Adventist Virtual Library by each
institution and the selection of information sources that will be incorporated into the
consortium.

As a final aspect of this presentation, I want to highlight the challenges that I consider most
important for the Consortium. First of them, it has to do with the need to increase the use of
the Adventist Virtual Library in teachers and students of elementary and secondary schools. The
statistics of use in this in this group of users are low and it is important to be able to meet their
needs. The Church has the expectation that the digital resources that are in this consortium will
be used by all educational levels, so it is something very important for us to be able to establish
dissemination strategies for these types of users. With regard to content, an area of
opportunity is to increase specialized books in the area of nursing, since nine inter-American
universities offer nursing and therefore it is necessary to further support the contents of this
area of knowledge. On the other hand, in the dialogue between librarians, there have really
been more among those who speak Spanish and in the Inter-American division there are
institutions that are French and English speaking. So, it is necessary to break that language
barrier to integrate these English and French speaking colleagues who are in the universities of
Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Haiti. It must be recognized that they too are users of the
Adventist Virtual Library and therefore close ties must also be established with them.

As a general conclusion, then we can say that the Virtual Adventist Library has been a great
blessing as a support for library services during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially with digital
books. The statistics indicate that this has been the resource that has been used the most by all
the institutions of the consortium. It must also be said that in this consortium the Adventist
Virtual Library has been a stage factor for communication between fellow Adventist librarians
and motivation for collaborative work. Of course, we have already made the exception that
communication has occurred more among librarians who speak Spanish. So, another element in
conclusion is that there are areas of opportunity to grow specifically in usage statistics within a
very particular group of users that are the primary and secondary communities. Also having
new sources of specialized training and of course integration with other colleagues in the
division. Thank you very much for your attention, God bless you