Postgraduate - High Schools - Icesi University - Cali- Colombia

The University has an institutional policy, with respect to the acquisition and up-dating of bibliographic materials. Some of its most important points are:

• The heads of the academic departments order the purchasing of new material for the library, according to the needs observed by them and the suggestions of their teachers.
• Only one copy of each book is purchased. Books that are most frequently consulted may be moved to the Reserved Section at the request of the professors.

In the University Library are printed materials as well as digital and audiovisual resources that contain information to support academic needs and investigations of the users (students, professors, investigators, employees and graduates). The collections specializing in national and international magazines are noted for the selection of their titles and for their correspondence to the plans of study.

The Library is supported in information technology by the program Oracle Libraries (OLIB Version 7.4.1), which guarantees excellent service to the University community. The user has the possibility, using the interface OPAC of OLIB, to consult all the documents and publications of the Library through computer terminals in the reading rooms or from any point of the Intranet and outside of it.

In addition to the bibliographic documents, the Library maintains a Section of Data Bases (Virtual Room) where local and on-line information are available in electronic formats. In the economic and administrative areas, the library has access to Social Science Research Network, BiblioAcademic, and EBESCO. All of these on-line resources can be consulted from the houses of the students, professors, and graduates.

In total, the Library has 109 data bases, in the disciplines that the Faculties offer. At the present time, the Library has the following resources to support its students:

For the continuous improvement of the bibliographic resources of the University, with respect to the up-dating and adequate number of texts, according to the number of students, a number of projects are being realized such as the creation of a virtual library, where all of the electronic information in the Library will be stored and recovered; one integrated system through which all of the physical electronic resources can be consulted from any terminal in the University; the classification, analysis and registering of the intellectual material produced by the Icesi, with the respective links to the complete texts of graduation case studies and Icesi Publications.

Currently the Library has the following bibliographic resources:

Number of titles: 33232
Number of Volumes 47382
Number of Periodicals (Active)
   Print: 526
   Electronic: 10398

The University offers to the University community a wireless network service in more than 70% of its installations.

The policy of the University is to renew the computers every three years. At present, the University has ten Computer Rooms and six Specialized Laboratories: 1) Networks and Communication, 2) Industrial Engineering, 3) Industrial Design, 4) Interactive Media Design, 5) Language, and 6) Financial and Economic Analysis Laboratory.

In the year 2006, the Financial and Economic Analysis Laboratory was inaugurated with computer aids such as Bloomberg, Economática, Benchmark, @Risk, Forecast-Pro, E-views y SPSS, and MATLAB.

Icesi University has formal agreements with major national and international manufacturers and providers of information technology such as IBM, Compaq, Oracle, Datecsa, Sun Microsystems, SAP and Compunet. Through these agreements students become knowledgeable in a wide range of software and hardware products with the latest technology.

One of the recent acquisitions of the library is SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH NETWORK, a subscription which provides electronic information to researchers in the area of Business, Economics, Finance and Law.

Computer science resources destined for teaching activities are organized by environments in ten computer classrooms, the language lab, the Network and Communications lab, and the computers for general use in the library for a total of 243 interconnected computer workstations. Besides the Internet browser, there is specific software for every environment installed on all computers.

It is important to emphasize the relation between the number of students and computers that the University has. Dividing the total number of students of the day programs (2102), in the second semester of 2005, by the number of computers (243) results in a ratio of 8.65 students per computer. This ratio is one of the lowest among the universities of the country; the lower the ratio, the higher the probability that a student finds a computer available when he or she needs it.

Since the beginning, the University Icesi has had the policy of promoting of the usage of computers as a support tool in its teaching processes. As a consequence, the different academic units are investigating permanently about the application of new software in the different courses that the University offers. The following is a summary of the educational software available in the Computer Rooms of the University:

Educational Software in the Computer Classrooms of the University Operating Systems: Solaris, Linux, Windows 2000/XP/2003
Data Bases:Oracle, DB2
Programming Languages: Turbo C++, Turbo Pascal, Java
Office Productivity Tools: Microsoft Office
Tool Case: Oracle Designer
Software for Developing Web Pages: Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Page Maker, Corel Web
Auto-publication Software: Photoshop, Ilustrator, Page Maker, Corel Draw
Financial Simulation Software: Intopia, Cashplan (Information detailed in the section of the Financial Analysis and Economics Lab)
Network Simulation Software: Extend, Matlab
Industrial Design Software:SolidWorks, Rhino, Helix
Econometrics Software: Limdep/Nlogic

The computer science resources are organized by work environments in twelve computer rooms. For the Economics area, three computer rooms have been outfitted for developing courses such as: Econometrics and International Finance. For Econometrics, the computers have mathematics and statistics software, such as: Lindep and Matlab, for advanced courses; EasyReg for introductory courses; and Demetra for econometrics with one variable estimation. For financial and administrative courses, there is software such as: Business Strategic Game, @Risc, Statistics, and various financial-accounting applications (Cinco, X-Data, Libra, SIC), SPSS, Bloomberg, y Stata, etc.)

Currently, the University has ten computer rooms and six specialized laboratories: 1) Network and Communications, 2) Industrial Engineering, 3) Industrial Design, 4) Interactive Media Design, 5) Language, 6) Financial Analysis and Econometrics Laboratory.

In 2006, the Financial Analysis and Economics Laboratory was inaugurated with computational tools such as:
Bloomberg: Information of world financial markets in real time,
Econometics: data base with financial information about Latin American businesses,
Benchmark: Information System that has a data base with commercial and financial information of approximately 15,000 Colombian businesses and 70 economic sectors.
@Risk: Software for simulation and modeling of risk
SIESA: Software of accounting analysis
Forecast-Pro: Software of predicting under uncertainty, g) Econometric packages: E-views and SPSS
MATLAB: Software of mathematic modeling and manipulation of data, including the modules of neuron networks, finance and optimization.

In this, students can make macroeconomic calculations, projections, econometric analysis and in the area of Accounting and Finance. They can evaluate businesses, investment portfolios, risk coverage, and accounting administration. In the same way, they can strengthen their investigative and consulting abilities, and have access to an international data base and advanced analysis tools.