LET US REALLY PROMOTE THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MEXICAN PUBLIC LIBRARIES  By: Zapopan Martín Muela Meza Student of Master in Library and Information Science State University of New York at Buffalo 3118 Main Street Buffalo, NY 14214-1354 USA zapopanmuela@yahoo.com  zmmuela@acsu.buffalo.edu  http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~zmmuela/resume.htm Paper presented in the First National Conference of Public Libraries and Document Centers of México. Saltillo, Coahuila, México, June 11-13, 2001 LET US REALLY PROMOTE THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MEXICAN PUBLIC LIBRARIES By: Zapopan Martín Muela Meza  "Books are the key to understand the world and participate in a democratic society. (...) Literacy is the way that leads from slavery to freedom. There are many types of slavery and many types of freedom. But reading keeps being the way.” -- Carl Sagan. (1)   Introduction We must warn our reader that this paper is not the result of a parametric research, it is rather based on a bibliographic review in order to synthesize concepts and ideas in a clear, simple and critical proposal that really tries to collaborate in the development of the Mexican public libraries. This work deals with the social and economical inequality and how it is automatically traduced in a inequality of who has and has not information and the technologies to access it. The fact that we recognize the problem from its roots, that is, that we state it as it is, it gives us a clear vision to look for fundamental solutions and not superficial ones. A fundamental transformation has to take place in the way that librarians: • Conceive libraries. • Act within and in favor of them. • Commit ourselves in benefit of its patrons. Therefore, this work presents a proposal to show alternatives toward the research and implementation