8th Entry
NaZibah KaMaRuddiN
Discuss on how Open Source Integrated Library Systems affect library functions and librarian roles.
“Open Source’ Integrated Library System Software
The term “open source” refers to software that is free and that includes the original source code used to create it so that users can modify it. It also includes the right of redistribution; therefore, there may be products that are based on other open source products.
Major Open Access Impacts on Libraries are:
Ø  Access and usage would not be limited by password, IP address, usage hours, institutional affiliation, physical location, a cap on simultaneous users, or ability to library would have the right to lend and copy digital articles on any terms library liked to any users they liked. Library could offer the same services to users affiliated with their institution, walk-in patrons, users at home, visiting faculty, and Inter Library Loan users.
Ø  Faculty and others could donate digital literature and software without violating their licenses, and library could accept them without limiting their usability.
Ø  All use would be non-infringing use, and all use allowed by law would also be allowed by technology. There would be no need for fair-use judgment calls and their accompanying risk of liability. There would be no need to err on the side of non-use. Faculty could reproduce full-text for students without the delays, costs, or uncertainties of seeking permission.
Ø  Library would not have to negotiate, either as individual institutions or consortia, for prices or licensing terms. Library would not have to remember, consult, or even retain, complex licensing agreements that differ from publisher to publisher and year to year.
Ø  Library would never have to cancel a subscription due to a tight budget or unacceptable licensing terms. Researchers would not encounter gaps in the collection corresponding to journals with unacceptable prices or licensing terms.


Librarians have been amongst the most vocal advocates for open access. Librarians have shown their support for open access by signing on to open access initiatives and petitions. The role of the librarian, particularly during the past two decades, has further evolved to encompass the burgeoning technological developments. The roles of librarian in open sources like:
Ø  They have also been actively involved through their institutions or associations in support of OA in other ways like:
·         Educating faculty and administrators on campus.
ü  To create awareness of the library services, facilities and collections
ü  To understand the methodology and searching strategy for effective information retrieval skills
ü  To provide access of information from various printed and electronic resources
ü  To cultivate the life long learning culture.
·         Building digital repositories to support self-archiving
ü  to provide open access to institutional research
ü  To enable the library collection to stored, managed and used more systematic
ü  to store and preserve other institutional digital assets, including unpublished or otherwise easily lost
ü  to create global visibility for an institution's scholarly research;
ü  to collect content in a single location;
Ø  Workings at integrating new technologies to open access are discovering an increasing demand for their professional skills.
Of course, there are also prominent open access advocates who are librarians, and they bring to the table strong concerns with fundamental scholarly publishing issues. While this has resulted in differences of perception, it has not caused any meaningful schisms in the movement.

Libraries adopt open access initiatives as a means of providing better access to research
materials to not only its own researchers but also to a world wide audience. These open access are also means to improve the library prestige among its peers and contribute to research globally.
“Open Source’ Integrated Library System Software
The benefits of open access, open source, and open standards are numerous. The benefits include lower costs, great accessibility, and better prospects for long-term preservation of scholarly works. Libraries should embrace all three of these concepts now and in the future. By supporting open access, open source, and open standards libraries not only can help ensure that their current and future patrons will have easier and more comprehensive access to scholarly research, they will also be helping other libraries around the world, including those in disadvantaged areas, to have access to important scholarly research.
 
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7th Entry
NaZibah KaMaRuddiN
Discuss on the needs of evaluating a library software before you decide to purchase it for your library - what do you look for when you do the evaluation?

“Open Source’ Integrated Library System Software
Library automation, an up-to-date method to help libraries and library patrons to effectively use library resources, is now streamlined because of computers and software. Through computer technology and software, library patrons have rapid and more user-friendly access to the latest information. They are also able to remotely access a library's collection. Library management software used to manage everything from home libraries to small, large and huge public libraries. 
The following criteria have been used to select the software:
1.   Predictable cost and timeframes:
Purchasing packaged application software allows a library to more accurately predicts costs. Properly identified features, functions and capabilities needed by a jurisdiction will lead to a highly predictable total cost of ownership for the life of the software. When developing application software using in-house staff, costs tend to vary widely and rarely are accurate or predicable. Technology staffs often are responsible for both supporting current operations and developing new systems. This leads to conflicting priorities, delayed implementations and escalating costs. Another reason for cost escalation and project delays is the lack of fully defined or accurate functional requirements. For the most part, software packages have been used in many other municipal environments, and a forgotten or missed functional need is likely to have already been programmed into the software. Unlike in-house development efforts, the cost and time needed to install and implement packaged software can be closely estimated and, in fact, can be fortified through contractual penalties for delays.

2.  Improved Maintenance and Support Cost:
Maintaining an internally developed application requires a dedicated, knowledgeable maintenance team. Issues arise relating to internal staffing levels, how to maintain the skills of the support staff, and retention of trained technology personnel. Typically, it is easier for a municipality to justify financial needs than to obtain additional personnel. Packaged software is backed by a commercial business dedicated to maintenance and viability of the system. In order to remain a commercially viable product, the software must be updated at regular intervals to keep pace with new technology and the functional needs of its clients. Because of this, internally built software tends to become obsolete in a much shorter time frame and, over time, may experience poorer ongoing maintenance and support.

3.  Functionality of the application:
Building a system in-house requires local government users to develop detail specifications and functional requirements of the application before it can be built. This step often is shortcutted, with disastrous results. Mature packaged software vendors have functional experts to design, develop, test and enhance the application over a period of many years with many clients. Also, these vendors support a wide variety of environments and attempt to put the best practices of the industry into their application to make their software more commercially attractive. Software built in-house requires detailed knowledge of the functions to come from within the local-government user community, which may have a more myopic view of the business function.

4.  Improved use of limited resources:
With the ever-increasing demands being placed on local governments, an emphasis on reducing cost of government while improving services to citizens is paramount. Purchasing packaged software applications allows limited technology resources to focus on those unique applications and services not readily available through packaged software.

5.  Rapid deployment:
With the rapidly changing technology environment and the limited application development resources of most local governments, many systems built in-house are obsolete before they are implemented. The ability to use packaged software applications reduces the time to bring a system operational, thus allowing a local government to gain productivity improvements sooner

All the above criteria are essential to ensure that library software to function properly

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6th Entry
NaZibah KaMaRuddiN
Discuss on how useful an Integrated Library System (ILS) as a Management Information System (MIS)
“Open Source’ Integrated Library System Software
Integrated library system (ILS), also known as a library management system (LMS), is an enterprise resource planning system for a library, used to track items owned, orders made, bills paid, and patrons who have borrowed.
An ILS usually comprises a relational database, software to interact with that database, and two graphical user interfaces (one for patrons, one for staff). Most ILSes separate software functions into discrete programs called modules, each of them integrated with a unified interface. Examples of modules might include:
  • acquisitions (ordering, receiving, and invoicing materials)
  • cataloging (classifying and indexing materials)
  • circulation (lending materials to patrons and receiving them back)
  • serials (tracking magazine and newspaper holdings)
  • the OPAC (public interface for users)
Each patron and item has a unique ID in the database that allows the ILS to track its activity.
Larger libraries use an ILS to order and acquire, receive and invoice, catalog, circulate, track and shelve materials. Smaller libraries, such as those in private homes or non-profit organizations (like churches or synagogues, for instance), often forgo the expense and maintenance required to run an ILS, and instead use a library computer system. Each patron and item has a unique ID in the database that allows the ILS to track its activity.
Larger libraries use an ILS to order and acquire, receive and invoice, catalog, circulate, track and shelve materials. Smaller libraries, such as those in private homes or non-profit organizations (like churches or synagogues, for instance), often forgo the expense and maintenance required to run an ILS, and instead use a library computer system.
“Open Source’ Integrated Library System Software
Librarians often referred to ILSs as library automation systems or automated systems in the 1970s and early 1980s. Before the advent of computers, libraries usually used a card catalog to index their holdings. Computers came into use to automate the card catalog, thus the term automation system. Automation of the catalog saves the labor involved in resorting the card catalog, keeping it up-to-date with respect to the collection, etc. Other tasks automated include checking-out and checking-in books, generating statistics and reports, acquisitions and subscriptions, indexing journal articles and linking to them, as well as tracking interlibrary loans.
Since the late 1980s, windowing systems and multi-tasking have allowed the integration of business functions. Instead of having to open up separate applications, library staff could now use a single application with multiple functional modules.
As the Internet grew, ILS vendors offered more functionality related to computer networks. As of 2009[update] major ILS systems offer web-based portals where library users can log in to view their account, renew their books, and authenticate themselves for access to online databases.
 
 
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5th Entry
NaZibah KaMaRuddiN
Where are we going in library automation? - discuss what is the status of library automation in Malaysia/Asia.


Library automation can be defined simply as the use of  and networking technologies in the library.
Areas of Library Automation:
  • Automation of library functions
  • Use of electronic resources within the library (e.g. CD-ROMs)
  • Accessing remote electronic resources (e.g. the Internet)
  • Office automation (e.g. word-processing, spreadsheets, databases, etc.)
  • Patron services (e.g. computer laboratory, multimedia center)
Objectives of Library Automation:
  • To improve the level of service and quality of output
  • To fulfill needs that cannot be achieved by manual system:
    • Sharing of resources
    • Information that appears only in electronic format (e.g. CD-ROM, Internet resources, databases, etc.

Library Automation Steps

Planning is time-consuming, but it is usually cost-effective because time spent planning reduces the amount of time required for system implementation. Steps involved are:
Step 1: Describing existing library services and technology
  • Identifying existing services and functions provided by the library
  • Identifying existing technology being used in the library
  • Collecting and organizing basic statistical data
Step 2: Assessing needs and setting priorities
  • Who should be involved in planning?
  • Needs assessment
  • Identifying approaches to satisfy the needs
  • Setting priorities
  • Developing a preliminary budget
Step 3: Translating needs and priorities into specifications
  • Designing specifications
  • Preparing and distributing the Request for Proposal (RFP)
Step 4: Evaluating proposals and selecting a system
  • Making the first cut
  • Seeing system demonstrations
  • Analyzing vendor responses
  • Costs
  • Obtaining responses from vendor's clients
  • Making the final cut
Step 5: Putting your system into place
  • Contract negotiations
  • Hardware and software installation
  • Training
Step 6: Retrospective conversion and barcoding
Example of Library automation


This video shows that RFID technology has in the UHF space & can benefit vastly to large public/private libraries by eliminating the human element alongwith the potential for errors besides completely streamlining & automating the process
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4th Entry
NaZibah KaMaRuddiN
Overcoming the information gap
Measuring the accessibility of library
databases to adaptive technology users
 
This study evaluates the accessibility to adaptive technology users of subscription library databases commonly purchased by libraries. The study operationalizes current federal web accessibility legislation and international web accessibility standards by developing a checklist of accessible features and tests the extent to which features have been incorporated into the major databases and importantly, the effect of a feature’s presence or absence. Because online and digital environments possess the greatest potential to provide individuals using adaptive technologies access to information, this study of subscription library databases provides concrete and conclusive evidence regarding the current state of accessibility common digital resources purchased by libraries.

Information access represents a fundamental need of citizens within any society. From understanding legal rights and obtaining medical information, to attending school and earning a college diploma, all individuals in theory should possess unhindered access to a wide variety of options and tools capable of completely fulfilling informational needs. However, a growing gap exists between individuals with unrestricted access to information and information resources and those persons with limited or no access to the same information, in spite of the increased proliferation of information sources, such as the worldwide web.
The purpose of this study is to address problems associated with the accessibility of academic library databases. This study evaluates 32 databases and measures their accessibility to users of adaptive technology. Based on the results of this study, 72 percent of the evaluated databases were rated as marginally accessible or inaccessible, reflecting a low level of compliance to federal web accessibility legislation and international web accessibility standards. To measure database accessibility to adaptive technology users, this study operationalized accessibility into ten component parts as the Tatomir Accessibility Checklist (TAC) and tested each database on each component. Findings of this study can be used both by those who purchase and manage databases in libraries to identify the most accessible databases and by designers of the databases to improve specific features.

Electronic journals and the digitization of library collections and projects such as the Google Books Projects offer unprecedented access to books and other written and visual materials to people with the technological and economic means to obtain these resources. In the digital era, access to web sites and digital resources for mainstream technology users occurs almost instantaneously. However, the load times for users of adaptive technologies remains unacceptably slow, often taking several minutes, rather than several seconds, for the resources to fully load. In spite of the fact that federal web accessibility legislation and international web accessibility initiatives have been enacted for over a decade and a half, a majority of library databases are largely inaccessible to adaptive technology users and fail to meet basic accessibility requirements established under federal law and international standards. While the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped network of regional and sub-regional libraries provides adequate access to popular fiction and non-fiction materials, individuals interested in pursuing scholarly topics who have a visual disability find that approximately 50 to 80 percent of print and visual materials remain inaccessible (Lee, 2005).

Few professionals and thus few institutions realize that incorporating accessibility features into web sites, interfaces and digital materials can be accomplished in a cost effective manner, with negligible expenditure of monetary and human resources. Likewise, few are aware that making digital resources accessible actually increases the usability of digital resources to the benefit of multiple user groups, not simply adaptive technology users. This article examines digital database load time in relation to the presence or absence of TAC (Tatomir Accessibility Checklist) features and argues that accessibility should be defined by a clearly delineated list of specific and tangible features and characteristics to make it easier for information professionals to make informed decisions about the purchase of digital resources with the assurance that they will be accessible to all users.

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