Original article: U. de Chile y Ministerio de las Culturas lanzaron la esperada Plataforma del Ecosistema del Libro y la Lectura
The University of Chile and the Ministry of Cultures have officially launched the Book and Reading Ecosystem Platform, an initiative developed under the agreement signed between both entities.
This platform fulfills a long-standing aspiration in the literary community: to have an updated Chilean editorial catalog and a public repository of data and research related to the sector.
«The central goal of this project is to democratize access to knowledge and culture, promoting interoperability among public institutions, the publishing world, and the general public,» stated representatives from the university.
The initiative consists of two major components:
CATED, the Chilean Editorial Catalog, which will compile standardized information about all works published in Chile, including enriched metadata such as authorship, publisher, rights, availability, and commercial links, integrating international standards like ONIX and MARC to ensure compatibility with global bibliographic and commercial databases.
ROEL, the Online Repository of the Book and Reading Ecosystem, serves as an open space for primary and secondary sources, analytical reports, and an interactive data visualizer that will track industry trends such as bibliodiversity, territoriality, and gender, modernizing the management and circulation of information about books in Chile while opening a forum for participation and analysis for researchers, cultural managers, and the public.
The project aims to integrate information from various sources, including the Legal Deposit, Intellectual Property Registry, ISBN Chile, the National Public Library System, CORFO, and ProChile, as well as contributions directly from publishers and distributors, with the purpose of building an interoperable database that serves public institutions, publishers, bookstores, and academics alike.
Vicente Neira Barría, Coordinator of Publications and Promotion of the Book and Reading at the University of Chile, emphasized, «At the heart of this initiative is the participation and articulation of the ecosystem; it not only addresses a long-felt need in the sector but also ensures that representative organizations will play a prominent role in this project.»
Looking ahead, the Data Governance Table for the Book and Reading Ecosystem will coordinate the continuous population of the platform, ensuring its updates and maintaining dialogue between institutions and civil society.
El Ciudadano
