Presentació duta a terme per a l'IFLA Library Buildings and Equipment Section a la UPF sobre els nous edificis de biblioteques de les universitats de Catalunya i les transformacions d'espais que les biblioteques estan fent per tal d'adaptar el seu espai a noves necessitats, com ara treballs en grup, consulta d'internet o entorns informals de treball i aprenentatge.

1. Library buildings and interior
(re)designs in universities of
Catalonia
IFLA Library Buildings and Equipment
Section
(midterm meeting)
Barcelona, February 27th, 2015
Pompeu Fabra University

2. Agenda
• The Catalan higher education system
• The university library system
• Library buildings
• Room for users
• Discussion

3. Higher Education system
3
 12 public and private universities
 Over 237,000 students (undergraduate
degrees and masters)
 Over 15,000 doctoral students
 More than 450 different undergraduate
degrees and 450 masters
 Campus of International Excellence
 1% of world scientific production (Nature)
 Two of the top five best executive
education schools around the world
 European standards: all programs
adapted to the Bologna process (ECTS).
Catalonia has a significant number of
educational centres per population
A sign of Catalonia’s excellence in Higher
Education is the number of students from
abroad Catalonia

4. 1. About Catalonia: Our position in the world’s higher
education and research rankings
1university is
ranked world’s 60th in
research productivity
4universities in the top
world’s top 100
universities under 50
2universities in the
world’s top 200
CRG is ranked 9th in
the world’s top 100
biomedic research centres
ICIQ 1st research
centre in chemistry
sciences by Max Planck
Institute
ICFO 1st research
centre in physics
sciences by Max Planck
Institute
ARWU i QS (2014)Time Higher Education (2014)URAP (2014)
Scimago Report (SIR 2013) Scimago Report (SIR 2013) Scimago Report (SIR 2013)
Barcelona is ranked the 6th European city and the 19th world city for
higher education students in the QS Best cities (2015 edition)

5. The university library system
• 1974-82: from dictatorship to democracy
• 1983: new law for universities (LRU)
• 1985-95: university libraries reorganization
– All the university libraries = The Library of the University
– Technical services, organization chart
– Library automation & services modernization
• 1990-05: new library buildings
• 2000-15: CRAI, library as resource center for learning
and research
– room for users

6. CBUC (CSUC)
• CBUC (Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia 1996-2013; CSUC
Consortium of Academic Services of Catalonia 2014- )
– Union catalogue
– Consortial borrowing
– Collaborative print repository: GEPA
– Digital library (licensing)
– Research repositories: doctoral thesis (TDX), articles &
papers (Recercat)
– Image repository (MDC)
– Portals: journals (RACO), research profiles (PRC)
– Shared ILS (Millennium) and library software (SFX,
MetaLib...)

7. Library buildings
• New (almost)
• Modern
• Big (6-8.000 m2)
• Campus libraries

8. Autonomous University of Barcelona. Biblioteca
de Comunicació i Hemeroteca General

10. Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Rector G. Ferraté
Library

11. Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Rector G. Ferraté Library

12. Pompeu Fabra University
- Ciutadella campus
- Poblenou campus
- Mar campus

14. University of Girona. Barri vell library

15. Girona University. Montilibi library

16. Lleida University, Biblioteca de Cappont

17. Lleida University, Biblioteca de Cappont

19. Room for users
• In 2000s:
– not easy to get money to expand libraries, they began to be saturated
– the digitization of journals was an unstoppable movement that would
reduce the need for physical items available to users
• CRAI main feature is to integrate in the library audiovisual, technology and
librarian services and resources, which requires changing the interior
design of libraries
• Libraries were designed to use books, nowadays they are designed so that
people can interact among them with all the resources
• This new orientation of libraries could not be translated into new
buildings, as they had been recently built
• To do so, there was no other alternative but to transform the existing
spaces

20. Pompeu Fabra University. Old França Library
Before: room for books
During: load of materials

21. Pompeu Fabra University Library/CRAI
Room for users
During: load of materials

22. Autonomous University of Barcelona. Library of Science and Technology
Before: room for books
During: load of materials

23. Autonomous University of Barcelona. Library of Science and Technology
After: room for users
After: room for users

24. Rovira i Virgili University: Library of the Faculty of Medicine and Health
Before: room for books (depository)

25. Rovira i Virgili University: Library of the Faculty of Medicine and Health
After: room for users

26. Lleida University, Cappont Library

27. Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Rector G. Ferraté Library
Before: room for books
During: renovation works

28. Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Rector G. Ferraté Library
After: room for users