Keep Solutions, a company specialising in information management and preservation, has created a platform for the Camões Library Network, which has adopted an integrated management solution for the network’s dozens of libraries, spread across 54 countries.
Camões – Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua, I.P. aims to be a “reference body in the coordination and articulation of the government’s foreign policy in the areas of international cooperation, promotion of the Portuguese language and culture as areas increasingly understood by states as instruments for projecting their influence and defending their interests”.
The institution now has an online platform that brings together the libraries of its extensive network in a single, common catalogue (bibliotecas.instituto-camoes.pt).
Koha is the software that supports this integrated management system and it was Keep Solutions, a company based in Braga and created by former UMinho students, that was responsible for this implementation.
According to Keep Solutions, in a statement, this new Integrated Management System for the Camões, I.P. Network Libraries allows access to the Camões Network’s bibliographic collection through a single platform; better management and organisation of the information made available to the public; more access to information, promoting a knowledge society; new services for the public with the dematerialisation of processes; incorporation of the Camões Digital Library, a repository of culture in the Portuguese language, whose main criterion is the availability of a collection of documents, digital or digitised, for free reading, without the need to register or subscribe.
Keep Solutions was founded in 2008 by a professor and former students of Informatics and Computer Science at UMinho.
It develops advanced solutions for information management and preservation. It has worked with various ministries, universities, municipalities and private companies, as well as international institutions such as the European Commission, the Swedish and Estonian National Archives, the Swedish Police, etc.