Emilio Setién Quesada

Doctor of Information Sciences, Licentiate in Scientific and Technical Information and Assistant Librarian.

His professional work began in 1959 with the start of operations at the BNCJM. At this institution he held the position of director of several departments. During this period he was assigned for five years to oversee the Provincial Library Directorate of the former province of Oriente (Las Tunas, Holguín, Granma, Santiago de Cuba, and Guantánamo), where he carried out a commendable effort in the reorganization of the Library Network of that province. Upon completion of this task, he returned to the National Library, where he held management positions.

When in 1976 the National Library Directorate (DNB) was separated from the BNCJM, and it became an independent institution of the Ministry of Culture, he was called to work at this new directorate, where he remained for nine years, developing a fruitful work of methodological advisory services to libraries and organizing library work throughout the country.

In 1985, with the dissolution of the DNB, he returned to the BNCJM heading the Research Department until his retirement, work that he shared with teaching at the secondary and university levels of the library science degree program.

He was a permanent member and correspondent of some Professional Committees of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), such as the Library Theory Committee and the National Commission of Scientific Degrees for the Social Sciences. He was a founder of the Cuban Association of Librarians (ASCUBI).

He taught courses, seminars, and lectures in Cuba, Nicaragua, India, Mexico, Argentina, and Spain, as well as in countries of the former socialist bloc: Soviet Union, German Democratic Republic, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia.

He participated in multiple national and international events.

He served as a visiting researcher at the Center for Library Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, between October 1995 and August 1996.

He directed research topics and themes in his field, and conducted thesis supervision for undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in Library Science and Information Sciences.

Among his personal research work, notable are the Mathematical Modeling of libraries in development, the methodological body of bibliological and informational disciplines in which the set of laws governing informational phenomena is stated explicitly and innovatively, as well as the principles and regularities that correspond to them, and the definition of features of Cuban and Ibero-American library science identity, which form part of the set titled Bibliological Informational Theory.

He served as a visiting researcher at the Center for Library Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico between October 1995 and August 1996.

He directed research problems and themes, as well as undergraduate, diploma, and master's and doctoral thesis work.

Despite his retirement, he maintained an active professional life in the Cuban library world, publishing articles, advising research work and theses, and as a member of the National Executive Bureau of ASCUBI, in which he remained until 2011.

He passed away on July 30, 2019, in Havana, Cuba, at the age of 80.

Publications
He published numerous articles in national and foreign journals, standing out as one of the authors with the highest scientific output in the library science profession in Cuba and Latin America. Among his most significant texts is the work titled New Developments of Bibliological-Informational Theory.

Awards and Distinctions

Commemorative Seal "Antonio Bachiller y Morales"
Distinction for Cuban Education "Raúl Gómez García"
Laureate Seal of the National Union of Culture Workers
Commemorative Seal "Antonio Bachiller y Morales" (awarded by the Cuban Association of Librarians and the Cuban Society of Information Sciences)
Distinction for National Culture
José Antonio Ramos Prize 2005, awarded by the Cuban Association of Librarians (ASCUBI), for his outstanding work in the field of library research.
National Prize for Information Sciences
He received national awards established by the Alex Urquiola Library of Holguín and the Elvira Cape Library of Santiago de Cuba. He received recognition from the Provincial Libraries of Sancti Spíritus and Pinar del Río and from the Organizing Committee of Info 2006, and the National Prize for Information Sciences awarded by the Cuban Society of Information Sciences SOCICT, among other distinctions.