UNIT 9 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTERISED LIBRARY

Transcription

1 Library Automation UNIT 9 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTERISED LIBRARY Structure 9.0 Objectives 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Basic Functions of Library Management Systems (LMS) Ordering and Acquisition Systems Cataloguing Systems Circulation Control System Serials Control System Management Information 9.3 Summary 9.4 Answers to Self Check Exercises 9.5 Key Words 9.6 References and Further Reading 9.0 OBJECTIVES In the previous Unit of this Course you have been told about the different categories of computerised information services offered by a library. In this Unit, let us try to understand some basic aspects concerning the management of a computerised library. After reading this Unit, you will be able to: identify the basic functions that might be expected in any library management system; understand the new role of librarian in managing library resources in different forms and formats; know the customer's approach to management and give priority to the efficiency and effectiveness to the delivery of information services to customers; use technology to enhance the relationship between the information service and the customer (user); and design information and its supporting technologies in such a way that relevant information can be identified, retrieved, manipulated and made available to appropriate individual users. 9.1 INTRODUCTION Libraries and Information Centres are increasingly using computers both for managing their house-keeping operations as well as for providing information services for their clientele. Under the circumstances management of these organisations (i.e., Libraries and Information Centres ) is becoming somewhat a complex activity. Traditional aspects associated with library management are slowly giving way to modern systems. 44 Library Management Systems (LMS) are now established as an essential tool in the support of effective customer service, stock management and in general management of services offered by libraries. The main objective of such systems appears to be maintenance, development and control of the documents pertaining to a library collection. Such systems are intended to support selection, ordering, acquisitions, cataloguing and circulation control of library collection. There are different types of systems which can be used by small and large libraries. Recent systems are generally grouped into the areas of online ordering, faster catalogue creations, improved authority control, circulation control, interlibrary loans, management information, OPACs and community information.

2 The management of LMS is influenced by many factors, some of which are: the environment, library resources and users, the role of systems manager, multiple sites from which the library functions and the need for staff development as well as user education and training. The present Unit is intended to describe what would be regarded as standard features in library management systems. Information regarding some systems which, provide additional features is also furnished. Computerised Information Services 9.2 BASIC FUNCTIONS OF LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (LMS) The basic functions of any LMS are: ordering and acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation control, serials control, management information and community information control. A library manager must always look for ways in which these functions can be integrated in order to reduce duplication of effort. Much of the software available in the market provides this integration in the sense that the software is provided in a series of modules covering specific functions which together form a complete system from acquisitions to online catalogue. `Modules can be bought as required and or as funding permits. Each module will work with all others, allowing records to he transferred from one to the other. The main objective is to indicate the factors which must be taken into consideration while studying automation of routines and to examine how some of the software perform with this type of activity Ordering and Acquisition Systems 'The important functions of an ordering or acquisitions system might be specified as: To receive records of items to be acquired; To establish whether items requir. ed are already available in the stock or on order; To print order or despatch electronic orders to suppliers and otherwise to order the required items; To check when orders are overdue and take appropriate follow up action To maintain a file of records on order; - To maintain a file of Vendors/Suppliers; To note the arrival of ordered items and take necessary action for the payment of the hills; and To maintain fund statistics and related accounts. The input for an ordering system to accomplish the above functions must include the following aspects: Details of new orders Changes or corrections to existing orders Vendors reports Details of received books All requests for an order must be checked to ensure that the item is not already available in the library stock, and it has accurate and full bibliographic data that is necessary and sufficient for ordering purposes. Order records of each item include : book number 6.e., 1132N), short bibliographic details, number of copies ordered, price, currency, the vendor with whom the order is placed and the particulars regarding the fund against which the payment is to be made. All such bibliographic records comprise the main file of current orders. A second file must contain names and addresses of booksellers used by the library, and this file must be open to al t erations, if needed. The order file is amended as and when the books arrive or. as and when t h e vendor notifies that the item/items are not available. In some libraries there may be a facility to define the type of the order for example, it could be a firm order, standing order or it may merely be on approval order, etc., provision may also be made to record multiple copies for different locations if the library has different branches functioning from different places. The process is initiated by adding orders to the order file. This operation prompts the despatch of orders to the supplier either in p6nt or electronic form. When a particular item is received 45

3 Library Automation Library Automation in the library, the order records become the basis of catalogue records in an integrated ordering and cataloguing system, order records may be examined and upgraded to cataloguing standards. At this stage of operation, book cards may be generated for use in the circulation system. It is necessary to make computer checks at regular intervals to find out the orders that remain unfulfilled. In other words, it may he stated that the output from an ordering system may be: a) b) c) d) e) f) g) printed or electronic listing of the order file an accession register/list of recent items acquired for the library details of accounting information remainders for unfulfilled orders book cards processing slips statistical information such as number of orders placed, orders executed, amount of funds spent, etc. It may be stated here, the above mentioned aspects are the totality of operations associated with any acquisitions system in a library. Self Check Exercises 1) Mention the basic functions of any Library Management System (LMS). 2) What are the outputs) from an ordering system? Note: i) Write your answer in the space given below ii) Check your answer with the answers given at the end of this Unit Cataloguing Systems The main objective of any computerised cataloguing system is to create appropriate catalogues for different categories of libraries. The key functions of any cataloguing module are: 46 Data entry, Downloading, Authority file maintenance and control. The data entry for the creation of records for the collection of documents acquired,for the library is very important. It is customary for library systems to use the same bibliographic record for ordering and acquisitions function as is used in the cataloguing. The cataloguing systems designed for any library must be in a position to handle the MARC record format. The use of MARC format facilitates use of externally created bibliographic records for producing the catalogue for the library. This is because many cataloguing systems are totally MARC based while many others can accept records in MARC format and can convert them into their own internal format. Most of the cataloguing systems have provision to automatically update index files as soon as a new record is added to the file. Downloading capability facilitates the system to download relevant entries from some bibliographic utilities into the catalogue of the library without duplicating the effort of cataloguing. Authority control file is very important where the form of index terms or headings such as author headings and subject index terms need to be controlled and standardized. Consistency is one of the important factors to he considered when the terms for headings are selected. To facilitate this objective libraries maintain authority files. These files are usually constituted

4 either while cataloguing or indexing of the documents acquired for the library. This operation is generally accomplished by verifying the authority file through display and then adding the new headings immediately to the authority file many cases the subject authority file may take the form of a thesaurus that displays the full range of related, narrow and broad terms in use. Standard tools such as AACR-2, Dewey Decimal Classification and the ISBDs (International Standard Bibliographic Descriptions) have contributed to a great extent to the standarisation of catalogue records. AACR-2 and ISBDs are very widely accepted and adopted for the preparation of standard catalogue records. Online Public Access Catalogues (OPACs) Some of the cataloguing systems provided by software vendors usually contain some default OPAC program which can be utilised by the subscribing libraries to design their own OPACs to their specific libraries. The library can identify the individual library OPAC design and create separate menus both for staff as well as for the public (users of the library). Help messages are normally context-specific so that an appropriate message is displayed on the screen depending upon the stage that has been reached in search. Some of the systems allow the libraries to select the fields of the record for indexing. With the advent of GUI-based interfaces, it has become possible to include a range of information retrieval facilities in menus of OPACs. Recent developments in OPACs are related with public-access terminals in a Kiosk format and links to the Internet. Public-access terminals are generally based on touch screens. These Interfaces are reliant on menus in which the user selects his/her option by touching the screen. The range of search facilities is limited in the case of touch screens than in the case of terminals with keyboard access: Kiosks are designed for use in any location such as public libraries, shopping centres and railway stations. Some OPAC interfaces also offer an option which allows access to the Internet, through the same interface as is used for searching the library catalogue. Computerised Information Services Self Check Exercises 3) Why libraries maintain authority control files? 4) What are public-access terminals and how they work as interfaces? Note: i) Write your answer in the space given below ii) Check your answer with the answers given at the end of this Unit Circulation Control System The circulation control system is one of the important components of any library system. The primary function of any circulation control system is to make available library materials including books and non-book materials to all customers as and when the demand arises without loss of time. In order that the collection of the library is made available to all the users, libraries must control the circulation effectively. The control must be based on sound principles. The basic requirements of a circulation control system are to record items on loan, and to whom, to find and trap items requested by other users, and to indicate overdue items. For this purpose the libraries need to maintain records which specify: What material is in the library stock or could be readily obtained through other channels; Which material is on loan, and from whom or where it can be retrieved; When will the material on loan be next available in the library for other users; and What are the borrowers (users) and their- borrowing facilities. 47

5 Library Automation Different libraries accord different priorities to these functions depending upon the extent and level of demand that they experience and the nature and urgency of the requests that they handle. Also, the materials and. the customers can be grouped and differentiated. For example, academic libraries operate short term loan collections for documents in great demand and also follow different loan periods for students and staff. In addition to the basic functions mentioned earlier, many of the libraries like their circulation control system to: recognise and trap the reserved books on their return from loan; prepare overdue and mail notices; keep records of the number of books on loan to individual borrowers, and notify over borrowing harrowers; facilitate renewals; facilitate the calculation and collection of fines; collect issue statistics; and provide adequate management information. Basic Components of Circulation Control System The main component of a circulation control system is the transactions or loans database. This database contains a series of records one for each transaction. Each record must contain: details of the document such as document number, etc. details regarding user such as user number, his address, etc. the data of the transaction such as issue or return date, etc. It is possible to use a Database Management System for the creation of the transactions or loans database, which is a set of three files, one for bibliographic details, one for user information and a third for transaction records. The last file may use numbers which have appeared in the other two files and might thus permit the merging of these three files when required (i.e., for sending the overdue notices). Online searching is possible for overdue and reserved items. Also report generator facilities will allow production of any relevant notice using the information contained in the three files. It is common to keep bibliographic details in a separate file. Generally, this database is same as the catalogue of collections acquired for the library. It provides information on titles, authors and publishing details. Some of these details are used in notifying users the overdues. Most of the packages for circulation control use bar-code readers as the simplest way of matching reader and the item (i.e., at the time of loan transactions). Alternatives such as keying in names and titles at each transaction, or numbers for user and the item (document) borrowed, are time-consuming and prone to operator errors, unless the software includes an error-trapping routine for the number input. It must be mentioned that in the specification of a circulation control system there are a number of points to be kept in mind, other than the obvious one of whether the package has the capacity to handle all the loan records. Messages relating to various functions will be required and will include the fact that an item is overdue or that a user has other overdue items; that the item is required for or the user has exceeded his loan entitlernent. The system may have to cope up with the varying loan facilities for different categories of user, as well as different loan periods for the different types of material. All these are essential points which need to be ensured for the effective management of any circulation control system of a library. Self Check Exercise 48 5) State the basic components of a circulation control system. Note: i) Write your answer in the space given below ii) Check your answer with the answers given at the end of this Unit.

6 9.2.4 Serials Control. System Serials represent a large portion of the stock in academic and special libraries. The subscription for many of the scientific, technical and research periodicals is very high and a large chunk of library budget is spent in academic and research libraries in the acquisition and management of serials. Hence, there is a great need for designing effective and efficient systems for the management and control of serials in such libraries. Serials control consists of a number of elements, though all these revolve around the same basic set of data relating to a journal subscription. The library manager must consider not only recording of serials subscriptions, but also requires a system where by individual issues of a journal (periodical) can be recorded as they are received in the library. A policy for dealing with long-term retention and disposal (including binding), means of controlling and recording subscription rates and renewals and a means of referring.from previous titles to ensure that holdings records are complete is to he formulated. In addition, exploitation of serials holdings may require formal systems to ensure proper circulation of new issues of journals to interested users. Though all these aspects may appear as disparate list of elements,'they need to be treated as components of single integrated serials recording system. Serials control systems generally have, to handle less number of items as compared to other systems, but must record more details for each title and can expect a great number of transactions per title. For this reason, serials systems address themselves uniquely to the problems posed by the nature of serials. An integrated serials control system has three sub-systems namely; An ordering acquisitions system, whose job is to control the selection, ordering and checking-in of serials, payment and chasing * when issues fail to arrive. Cataloguing or keeping records of stock. Circulation control-or keeping records of availability of serials, to include circulation and binding. Functions of a Serials Control System Computerised Information Services The following are the functions to be covered by a serials control system: Management Information Selection for purchases Ordering (including renewals and subscriptions) Receiving issues and claiming for issues not 'received Recording current holdings and allowing access to such lists Circulation of issues and borrowing. Binding In order to perform the above functions, the serials control system must have a number of core databases. The entire system depends on the master records of database. The database contains master serial records, which may be held in a series of linked files. Each record in a serials system includes: Cataloguing data (That is to say that the records may be MARC based or in any other simple format); Ordering data including renewal dates, and addresses of publishers, codes for vendors and costs; Receiving data such as frequency of publication,.irregularies, claiming criteria; Binding data such as colour and style of binding, number of issues per binding volume and type of binding; Holdings data that is the number of volumes available in the library, etc; and Circulation data that is the names and addresses of locations for circulation. Availability of such data may form the basis of a set of lists to aid the control of the various functions. 49

7 Library Automation Self Check Exercise 6) Name the three sub-systems of an integrated serials control system Note: i) Write your answer in the space given below ii) Check your answer with the answers given at the end of this Unit Management information The provision of useful management information is now an important requirement in the efficient and effective running of library and information services. The main emphasis in today's context is on proactive services, that is, services which seek out information demands and information needs and attempt to meet them. Proactivity requires information on the use of the service which can be utilised not only for problem solving but also for problem finding. Though, many of the automated systems collect such management information, it is rarely utilized by toe library and information services managers to improve such systems. This fact has been realised by the suppliers of large automated systems and the situation has now changed leading to major improvements in this respect, Systems that attempt to provide. information that supports management functions are coming into existence. it may be stated that the administration of library and information services covers topic ranging from those with direct parallels in the business world such as personnel records and salaries to routines which are more specific to the information service. Of late, some library management systems have introduced separate management modules. In other systems management information and reports are associated with each of the modules, so that standard reports can be generated as required. Now-adays systems offer a menu-based management information system, which is easy to use and many are based upon a graphical user-interface. These systems also offer a range of statistical facilities for the analysis of data to identity trends and correlation between variables. 9.3 SUMMARY in the administration and management of library and information services certain, aspects of walk arise simply from the fact that are. in their own way, business operations with administrative functions. For instance, budgets must be prepared and accounts kept, statistical information has to be collected and reports must be prepared and presented to the authorities as and when required. How much of these activities are to he there depends on the size and nature of a particular library or information service. To manage a computerised library is a complex task. To ease this situation a number of library management systems arc available to the manager of library and Information services. Some of the library management systems available, which help the librarians and managers of information services have been briefly discussed in this Unit. Some of the essential aspects associated with the management of a computerised library are: i) issues with enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the library operations, and ii) issues associated with customer services. 50 Appropriate hardware and software are necessary for this purpose. Some of the issues concerned with managing a Library Management System are presented in the Unit. This information may he found useful in the proper management of a computerised library.

8 9.4 ANSWERS TO SELF - CHECK EXERCISES Computerised Information Services 1) The basic-functions of any LMS are: Ordering and Acquisition Cataloguing Circulation Control Serials Control Management Information Control- Community Information Control 2) The outputs from an odering system may include the following: a) b) c) d) e) f) printed or electronic listing of the order file, an accession register/list of recent items acquired for the library, reminders for unfulfilled orders. Book cards processing slips, and. statistical -information. 3) Authority Control File is very important where the form of index terms or headings such as author headings and subject index terms need to be controlled and standardised. Consistency is one of important factors to be considered when the terms for headings are selecte To facilitate this objective libraries maintain authority files. 4) Public-access terminals are generally based on touch screens. These interfaces are dependent on menus in which the users select their option by touching the screen. The range of search facilities is limited in the case of touch screens than in the case of terminals with keyboard access. 5) The main component of a circulation control system is transactions or loans database. This database has a series of records one for each transaction. Each record must contain the details': of the: 1) documents, 2) users, 3) data of the transactions, etc. Any DBMS may be used for the creation of the transactions or loans database, which contain three files, i.e., one for bibliographic details, one for user information and third for transaction records. 6) The integrated serials control system has three sub-systems namely, 1) An ordering acquisitions system, whose job is to control the selection, ordering and checking-in of serials, payment, etc: 2) Cataloguing 3) Circulation control 9.5 KEY WORDS Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs): A GUI means an interface that uses bit mapped displays rather than character displays': GUIs are regarded as particularly useful when the user population is expected to contain a high proportion of novices: The GUIs help the users gain confidence and mastery because they initiate an action and predict system responses. 51

9 Library Automation Kiosks : They are workstations which are specifically designed for public access. They may be estandalone ' or networked through a larger computer system. Library systems suppliers are integrating kiosks with touch sensitive screens into public access and self service Kiosks. Public Access Terminals: Terminals or workstations specially designed for accessing information through OPACs. These are in the form of Kiosks. 9.6 REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING Cortez, E.M. and Smorch, T. (1993). Planning Second General Automated Library Systems. Westport: Greenwood Press. Fisher, S. and Rowley, J. (1994). Management Information and Library Management Systems: An Overview. The Elective Library. 12(2). Harbour, R.T. (1994). Managing Library Automation. London: Aslib. Haseltine, R.C. (1994). New Perspective on Library Management Systems. Program. 28(2), Murray, J.R. (1097). Assessing the effect of New Generation Library Management Systems. Program. 31(1-4), Rowley, J. (1998). The Electronic Library. 4th ed. of Computers for Libraries. London: Library Association Publishing. Saffady, W. (1994). Introduction to Automation for Librarians. Chicago: American Library Association. Yeats, R. (1996). Library Automation: The Way Forward. Program. 30(3),