“¿Sanos y a salvo?” Relevamiento de medidas de seguridad e higiene en bibliotecas públicas del Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires

This research deals with the existence and effectiveness of safety and hygiene measures and how they influence the occupational health of workers of the Government public library network. A random sampling was carried out in ten of the 29 libraries comprised in the net. The analysis showed the limited information on the occupational risks, the lack of knowledge as regards occupational diseases and the scarce preventive measures taken concerning health and occupational hygiene in this field. The task begins with a brief account of the kind of protection given to workers as to accidents or occupational disease before 20th Century. There is a definition of the concept of occupational hygiene, a distinction between what it means to prevent and protect in this context and statistical data on victims of occupational accidents, occupational diseases and death, and also, data on costs incurred by these grounds worldwide. In addition, there is a distinction about damage to health taking into account occupational diseases and accidents at work. The causal risk factors, in the second section, are classified and listed in physical, chemical, biological, psycho-physiological and ergonomic, with special emphasis on the factors that influence negatively on the health of information workers and librarians. It is possible to get information about what happens as regards this topic in Argentina, Chile,Colombia, Peru and Cuba in the third subparagraph. Finally, a Guide to good practices in procedures of security and hygiene for public libraries of GCBA is designed. It is based on the indispensable guidelines to take into account in order to reduce risks to people, their working places and environmental working place