11^th entry

In 1000 words, write the reason why you like or dislike using e-portfolio as one of your learning and assessment tools. This may include how have you benefited or not from the process of e-portfolio development. This entry will be purely your opinions, thoughts and feelings reflecting your experience when developing the e-portfolio. Therefore you are not supposed to cite any references in this entry.

Using blog for e-portfolio has been an interesting experience for me, especially this second time of using blog for assignment. Since the blog is used as a container and a tool for developing my e-portfoilio, I would like to treat the blog and the e-portfolio as one component and reflect on both. The first time I used blog was just last semester which was a one time entry, so the experience was limited to creating a blog and doing one entry. At that time blogging was done to fulfill a requirement and not as an interest due to other commitments such as work and time constraint. I did not really dig deep and explore what other features a blog might have or how it can be used effectively in my assignments and especially in information management.

For this second time around, the whole process of creating the blog, writing and posting regular entry and exploring, finding and putting in relevant features for the e-portfolio throughout the entire semester has invoked an interest in me, despite other commitments and time constraint. I have not found using blog for e-portfolio to be boring, on the contrary it has enriched my knowledge, skills and experience of using the tool as a technology for information management and the presentation of it.

The e-portfolio as a regular/weekly entry has compelled me to read more than I would normally have found the time to do so but in the process, I have gained in knowledge in the areas of technologies for information management. I have begun the class with little knowledge about digital libraries, very little knowledge about adaptive technology, integrated library system (proprietary or open source), or how to effectively and systematically evaluate an ILS, the proper perspective of library automation, or the various categories of open source social software and its usage. But now I have gained a little more knowledge in those respective areas mentioned and their benefits to libraries and librarians and information professionals. This has been a very fruitful, beneficial and rewarding learning process for me and one that would equip me for a better prospect as an information professional. But at the same time I’d like to say that looking or searching for the relevant materials to read before writing is the part I fear most and even find to be tedious and could be time consuming. The amount of time spent on getting the relevant materials to read can be unpredictable and due to time constraint, I have to set a target and limit myself to how many resources I want to refer to. For example, the topic of library automation in Malaysia/Asia was dealt with based on the resources I gathered about library automation in schools, but I have not touched on academic libraries or public libraries in Malaysia. Other resources I referred to were the lecture notes, which have been most helpful for me as reference and guide. I must say that developing the e-portfolio has been my main preoccupation this semester, since it is almost a weekly requirement.

The process of recording my writings in the e-portfolio meant that I would also record any mistakes or wrong understanding that I might have about a subject, fact or information. For example, in my 3^rd entry, I wrote that CDS/ISIS was not free but by the time I get to the 5^th entry, I found out that CDS/ISIS software was distributed free to libraries by UNESCO. I have since corrected my own mistake and edited my entry. That’s one more advantage of using the blog for my e-portfolio; it’s easy to do editing and updating. There might be other mistakes but I believe that I would be able to correct them through constant personal reading and self-improvement. The e-portfolio allows me to see my own progress in learning.

What I like about using blog for e-portfolio is the flexibility of changing the pictures, design template, gadgets, font type and colours, etc. as many times as I like until I find one that I feel is appropriate for the purpose of the blog and also one that I like. I can also use my own photos, post them and they would be available online globally for all to see, if I choose to, which brings me to another good point of what I like about blogging. By the 9^th entry of my e-portfoilio, I have discovered how to use the settings on permissions. I can control who can have access to my blog. Another benefit of the blog e-portfolio is that it is accessible by my course instructor and therefore she can keep track of my progress at any time and from anywhere (and I don’t have to submit the portfolio in print). There were moments of frustrations when creating the blog as well, but through trial and error and many attempts, I’ve used some of the features which are now on my blog. Most importantly, I see how all these features of the blog can be used effectively to organize my writings and other relevant supportive information I want to be added, to be published on my e-portfolio. For example, some relevant free online resources I’d like to show on the e-portfolio could easily be done through the use of link list gadget and page elements that can be flexibly arranged and rearranged.

I have seen my own progress in the skills of using the blog as a tool when comparing my first blog and this e-portfolio (second blog). I have thoroughly enjoyed the entire process of creating the blog and developing the e-portfolio regardless of the stress and pressure that came with it. But I have also realized long ago of the “no pain, no gain” philosophy in acquiring skills and knowledge, especially when having to meet deadlines. It’s all part and parcel of an adult working student’s life. But the end result is that I have gained in skills and knowledge and that’s what really matters.

10^th entry

Discuss on the Impact of Open Access Initiatives to Libraries.

The first scholarly journals began in 1665 for the publishing of research works among the scientific community to disseminate new findings and knowledge quickly and to establish priority of researchers investigating the same problem. Authors of these journal articles were not paid but they wrote more for the sharing of their work and impact and not for payment. This tradition of writing for impact and recognition among professional circles instead of financial reward has continued until today (Albert 2006; Suber 2004).

           

The escalating price of print journals in the 1980s made subscriptions unaffordable for many university libraries, causing cancellation of some journals, thus being deprived of access to ongoing scholarly research findings. The “serials crisis”, a term that is used to describe the price increase of many scholarly journals is also seen as a problem caused by some commercial publishers, specifically in the area of science, technology and medicine. The rising rate of journals affected library budget and was considered a problem that libraries (especially university libraries) need to overcome (Panitch and Michalak 2005).

The serials crisis was a factor for the development of the OA (open access) movement. Paul Ginsparg, a physicist, was the first person to make physics preprints accessible on the internet when he set up the server ArXiv at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1991, freely sharing information before publication (Albert 2006; OA). Three years later, another leading activist and co-founder of the movement was Stephen Harnad, a cognitive scientist, who advocated self-archiving and the creation of tools for interoperability and metadata standards so that different multiple archives can function as one that allows free searchable access (Albert 2006). The OA movement opens up alternatives for research works to be disseminated worldwide instantly. University libraries and librarians now have a solution to the serials crisis and are faced with new challenges of managing open access articles/journals. According to Suber (2004), open access literature is “digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions”. 

Research articles through open access can be published in two ways, mainly:

• OA journals (also known as gold OA)
• OA archives or repositories (known as green OA)

The difference between the two is that OA journals are peer reviewed while OA repositories are not. OA archives are where authors deposit their own work into the institution’s repository at their own convenient time. The colour gold and green designated is to differentiate their venues (Suber 2004).

One example of a gold OA from the University Malaya library website would be the Electronic Journal of University Malaya (EJUM) while MyAIS (Malaysian Abstracting and Indexing System), an institutional repository, which is a product of a research project undertaken by the Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology, University Malaya (Kiran K. and Chia 2009), is available via University Malaya Library website open access databases, is a green OA. EJUM is an electronic journal publishing system developed by the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University Malaya to host Malaysian journals, and not for University Malaya’s journal output alone. Publication and uploading of articles into the system are done by a group of academic volunteers (Zainab A.N. and Nor Badrul Anuar 2008).

Open Access in Malaysia

Open access initiatives (institutional repositories) in Malaysia are still in its early stages. University libraries are taking the lead in making use of open access to deliver their research findings and intellectual output. In their research, Kiran K. and Chia (2009) found that there are twelve institutional repositories initiatives in Malaysia, of which nine are hosted by university libraries, while the other three are projects of Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University Malaya (MyAIS, MyManuscript, Dspace@UM) (Kiran K. and Chia 2009).

Zainab A.N. and Nor Badrul Anuar (2008) noted that in Malaysia, electronic journals publishing is “slow to catch on” and thus the number of electronic journals is small, which is, thirty as counted in January 2007, spread out in UKM, UM, USM, UNIMAS, MMU, UTM, with UKM and UM having the most e-journals at eight each. However, they believed that when authors understood properly the benefits arising from their contributions to open access journals, the Malaysian authors’ contribution to open access publishing might speed up (Zainab A.N and Nor Badrul Anuar 2008).  

From a research carried out by Abrizah (2009) in a research intensive university, she found that one third of the faculty respondents were unaware of open access and IR or aware but uninvolved. Other deterrent from using IR by faculty members were copyright issues and plagiarism. One other reason for the low use of the IR was the relatively new establishment of the IR, thus low awareness among faculty members (Abrizah 2009).

Impact on Libraries and Librarians

The concept of open access publishing offers the library a new avenue of managing and developing journal collections. The willingness of university libraries to establish institutional repositories indicates their active role in remaining relevant to the ever-evolving landscape of information and communication technologies that impact libraries. Libraries’ traditional role of managing and archiving print journal collections will experience a paradigm shift as they subscribe to and support the faculty’s open access publishing activities. Libraries will not be sidelined but will play an important role in providing the expertise of collecting, organizing and maintaining digital content contributed by authors. Libraries’ help and support to the authors is in the aspect of document format, metadata standards, and authority control. Libraries will have to work closely with the faculty, who are the contributors, users and change agents for the working success of the institutional repositories (Crow 2002, 20-21).

The impact of open access publishing/institutional repositories extends beyond the internal community of the university in its positive influence as the information resource centre and provider to the national and international scholarly community. Open access articles have a higher chance of being read and cited than the closed access articles, which are not freely accessible on the Internet. This increases the visibility of both the authors and the university. The impact of the research works, which are now accessible around the world, will influence future research and contribute to the advancement of research, education and society as a whole. Both visibility and impact will greatly elevate the reputation of both the authors and the university. On a negative note, there are some concerns about OA, such as long-term findability, storage and authenticity of the digital documents. Electronic/digital documents have a knack for disappearing from the web. But steps are taken to overcome these problems by ensuring searchable metadata and persistent identifiers, and digital signature for authenticity (Open access to scholarly information).   

As for librarians, their role in giving user education would be expanded to include helping the faculty learn how to use the IR software for self-archiving. The librarians themselves must be thoroughly knowledgeable of the IR software (Allard, Mack and Feltner-Reichert 2005) and have a working knowledge of the software. The librarians who will be involved in training the IR users should also receive training first about the reasons and benefits of establishing the IR so as to be able to speak confidently and be competent in providing training to the faculty. One effective way is for librarians to have a hands-on training in using the IR (Bell, Foster and Gibbons 2005). 

Librarians can also help explain and promote IR on paper to be distributed to faculty that advocates scholarly publishing through open access, the current trend to be reckoned with in making research works visible quickly, locally and internationally, thus creating impact on the learning community.

Librarians may also use their public relations skill in communicating directly the availability and benefits of IR to the faculty. Public relations and communications are skills that can be acquired through training for the librarians, thereby better equipping librarians for the task. Planned public relations strategy should be the responsibility of the librarians in this awareness effort to reach the faculty (Open access for scholarly information). Abrizah (2009), from her research found that faculty was willing to use IR when made aware of the availability and benefits of using IR.

Librarians’ role in collection development is also expanded here to include drafting clear guidelines and procedures to help authors deposit intellectual output that are consistent with the IR contents as intended by the library (Allard, Mack and Feltner-Reichert 2005).

In conclusion, libraries and librarians are faced with the challenges of the advance of information and communication technology and the open access movement and must take steps to continually embrace the improvements that these technologies can bring to libraries and their patrons. Librarians’ role are not just custodian of the library but with the OA movement that advocates open access scholarly publishing, whether through journals or institutional repositories, their role will be expanded to include being that of stewards of the digital collections. The impact of open access on librarians that entails new responsibilities will serve to elevate the field of librarianship.

References:

Abrizah, A. 2009. The cautious faculty: their awareness and attitudes towards 

           institutional repositories. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science 14, 

           no. 2: 17-37.

Albert, Karen M. 2006. Open access: implications for scholarly publishing and medical

            libraries. Journal of the Medical Library Association 94, no. 3 (July),

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1525322/pdf/i1536-5050-094-03-0253.pdf (accessed April 9, 2011)

Allard, Suzie, Thura R. Mack and Melanie Feltner-Reichert. 2005. The librarian’s role in

institutional repositories. Reference Service Review 33, no. 3: 325-336.

Bell, Suzanne, Nancy Fried Foster and Susan Gibbons. 2005. Reference librarians and the

success of institutional repositories. Reference Service Review 33, no. 3: 283-290.

Crow, Raym. 2002. The case for institutional repositories: A SPARC position paper.

            ARL Bimonthly Report 223. http://works.bepress.com/ir_research/7 (accessed 

           April 11, 2011).

Kiran K. and Chia Yip Ping. 2009. Open access initiatives in academic libraries:

            Challenge to the user. World Library and Information Congress: 75^th IFLA

            general conference and council, August 23-27, Milan, Italy.

OA, open access to scholarly information.

            http://open-access.net/de_en/general_information/what_does_open_access_mean/history/        

            (accessed April 10, 2011).

Panitch, Judith M. and Sarah Michalak. 2005. The serials crisis. A white paper for the

            UNC-Chapel Hill scholarly communications convocations, January.

http://www.unc.edu/scholcomdig/whitepapers/panitch-michalak.html (accessed

April 10, 2011).

Suber, Peter. 2004. Open access overview.

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm (accessed April 10, 2011).

Zainab A.N. and Nor Badrul Anuar. 2008. Visibility and Malaysian Scholarly Journals.

            Workshop on managing scholarly journals, January 13-16, Langkawi, Malaysia.

9^th entry

Discuss how open source and social software applications can serve to fill digital library roles

The various types of open source social software by category are blogs, RSS and News Readers, wikis, social bookmarking, photo sharing, social cataloging, video sharing, personalized start pages, social networking software, vertical search engines, social news, answers technology, virtual worlds, productivity tools, podcasting and mashups. These social software applications or Web 2.0 technologies are used by libraries, librarians and information professionals for managing library resources, information and services in some and a variety of ways, using the Web as a platform. These technologies opened the way for “libraries to be part of the global online community and truly collaborate with the people they serve “(Kroski 2008, xiv).

Digital libraries

Digital libraries, in place of physical books and place, but having all the attributes of a traditional library like resources and services, are created to meet a specific community and facilitate its users. Digital libraries, regardless of the software used for its creation, rely on metadata standard to collect and index information for its collection to be searchable when queried.  

A digital library is characterized by its universal and open access with digitized content accessible only with computer. The contents can be textual, image, or in audio or video format.     

Borgman (1999, 234) defined digital libraries as:

            a set of electronic resources and associated technical capabilities for creating,
            searching and using information…and exist in distributed networks. The content
            of digital libraries includes data, metadata that describe various aspects of the data
            (e.g. representation, creator, owner, reproduction rights) and metadata that consist
            of links or relationships to other data or metadata, whether internal or external to
            the digital library.  

Arms (2000, 2) gave an informal definition of digital library as “a managed collection of information, with associated services, where the information is stored in digital formats and accessible over a network.”

Among some of the elements associated with the definition of digital library is that the collections “are not limited to document surrogates: they extend to digital artifacts that cannot be represented or distributed in printed formats” (Association of Research Libraries).

Open source social software in digital library roles

In a digital library project for the purpose of creating a digital repository for historic photographs and collections of Forsyth County, NC institutions, the Qualified Dublin Core metadata standard was used whereas the content was managed using Protégé (free open source ontology editor and knowledge-base framework). Although the back-end of the digital library was functioning well, but it did not have a public interface that users can interact with. The researchers had to look for an alternative platform that could also provide a user interface. A blogging social software, WordPress, was finally selected as a platform for the digital repository, but not without facing some issues. The open source software used was able to fill digital library roles in its ability to “store and display QDC metadata”. The software was able to contain and present metadata based on the hierarchical faceted categorization system and manage data. It had the capacity to permit public interface, thus allowing user interactivity. Several modifications to the software had to be made to suit the needs of the digital repository. The issues encountered were in the areas of data management, technical skills and sustainability. The first issue that involved data management referred to the fact that digital libraries create, manage and preserve digital objects whereas social software’s main purpose is to present data and having user-friendly interfaces. Hence, they had to be careful in representing and preserving accurate data. Some skills were required in customizing the social software, especially in using PHP, SQL, CSS/HTML, web server software and JavaScript. Sustainability was another issue in using social software, in view of the fact that open source social software stability and permanence depends on the user community. Despite the issues, the researchers found that development and maintenance costs were reduced by using WordPress (Mitchell and Gilbertson 2008).   

References:

Arms, William Y. 2000. Digital libraries. MIT Press.

Association of Research Libraries. Definition and purposes of a digital library. 

         http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/mmproceedings/126mmappen2.shtml

         (accessed April 8, 2011).

Borgman, Christine L. 1999. What are digital libraries?: Competing visions. Information 

         Processing & Management, 35(3): 227-243.

Kroski, Ellyssa. 2008. Web 2.0 for librarians and information professionals. New York: 

         Neal-Schuman Publishers.

Mitchell, Erik and Kevin Gilbertson. 2008. Using open source social software as digital 

         library interface. D-Lib Magazine, 14(3/4).     

         http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march08/mitchell/03mitchell.html#Polar (accessed April 

         7, 2011)

8^th entry

Discuss on how Open Source Integrated Library Systems affect Library Functions and Librarian Roles.

Open source technologies refer to software that users can use freely, including customizing, sharing and distributing them, customizing being possible with the source code that comes with the product. In their definition of open source, Jaffe and Careaga (2007, 2) described it as:

           

            Open source resources are shared without cost, provided with the means

               to customize and enhance them, and are managed through a licensing process

               that protects the rights of the creators and their collaborators while allowing

               users broad access.

The collaborative manner in which the open source software is used promotes knowledge sharing, speedy debugging and contributes to the development and improvement of the software.

In 2008, Breeding (2008, 16) reported that there were four open source ILS products that were used by many libraries, which were Koha, Evergreen, OPALS and NewGenLib. In another report on an international survey of library automation by Marshall Breeding (2011), he found some of the most popular open source ILS products used were Apollo (used only in small public libraries), OPALS, Koha, Polaris, Agent VERSO, Millennium, Library.Solution and Evergreen. Some open source ILS was abandoned while some gained wider usage.

How it affects library functions and librarian roles

A major difference between a proprietary and an open source ILS is that users can easily access information about its functional features. For a proprietary system, a library would have to issue an RFP to a vendor in order to find out the available functions and features. Not so for an open system where a library can download the software freely and explore its features. A librarian would have the advantage of accessing information of open source ILS freely and assessing its functions and features against the library’s needs when considering a change in system used.   

• Resource Sharing

Open source ILS allows libraries to combine their resources through a consortium. Through this method, libraries can offer more resources for their patrons. Joint automated systems allows users to know what is available in other libraries and also facilitates inter library loan. A library can depend on other libraries’ collection strength, thus building and strengthening its own specific collection area. However, resource sharing through consortium posed some challenges to participating libraries. Individual libraries would have a much bigger collection to manage with higher transaction activities. Individual libraries would also be faced with the challenge of having to keep their own identities while at the same time abiding to the policies of resource sharing. It’s a much more complex organizational structure than a single library (Breeding 2008, 27).

• Online Catalog

Online catalog allows users to search the library’s collections and view the full information of an item and the status of the item. The online catalog of the proprietary automated library system used where I work enables users to search for the library’s collection only, example, a search on “adult education” would show the following result list of available materials:

In order to view the full information and the status of a specific item (whether available, borrowed or expired, circulation section or reference), the user would have to click on the item concerned which would yield the following page as follows:

The system used is meant for access to print collections only, in a single library.

However, for libraries that have print and electronic collections, the above system would not work and a better interface would be needed to provide access to a broader content, which is available in open source ILS. Breeding (2008), 27) observed that “Koha and Evergreen bear many similarities to the standalone discovery interface products.” They “make use of faceted browsing, default to relevance sorting of results,” and aesthetically designed user interface. Some of the online catalog features include basic search, advanced search, brief display list, full record display, MARC display, book jacket display, download/save records, e-mail records, etc. With these, libraries would be able to better meet users’ need in browse and search. Librarians may have to conduct training to teach users of the use of online catalog.

• Circulation

The basic functions in circulation include check-outs, check-ins, renewals, record fines, and create new records of patrons. However, different library types have different requirements in the circulation module. For example, academic libraries put items on reserve and change the loan duration according to the needs of a course whereas public libraries are faced with higher volumes of circulation transactions. As observed by Breeding (2008, 28-29), open source ILS are able to meet these different requirements. Besides the basic transactional functions, open source ILS (specific examples of Koha, Evergreen, OPALS and NewGenLib) are able to perform “place items on hold”, “tally in-house use:, “circulation of noncataloged items” and “academic course reserves (short-term loans)”. At the time of his (Breeding 2008) writing, the academic reserves were under development for Koha and Evergreen. These additional functions would greatly help libraries and librarians manage circulation activities, and increase efficiency in managing the items on reserves.

• Cataloging

Open source ILS cataloging functions include create bibliographic records, support for MARC 21, import MARC records with Z39.50, add holdings, harvest records with OAI-PMH, authority control, produce spine and pocket labels, export MARC records, MARC record validation and built-in documentation for MARC (Breeding 2008, 28-29). As compared to the proprietary automation system that my library currently use, open source ILS offers more functions (such as import and export MARC records, harvest records with OAI-PMH and MARC related functions) that would greatly improve the library’s efficiency in cataloging.

• Acquisitions

Acquisition functions, among others, include receiving and selecting recommended items, prepare order notes, generating claims, maintaining accounts, accessioning items and keeping statistics. Large libraries would need to be able to allow automated transfer of data to their suppliers incorporating standard for EDI (electronic data interchange), and with other financial systems. Functions in open source ILS such as fund management, vendor file, invoice processing (EDI), and approve/process payments would help libraries and librarians in financial management.

• Serials Control

Serials control includes periodicals, journals, magazines, bulletins and etc. Managing them can be quite an arduous task for a librarian because it involves keeping track of subscriptions, missing issues and claims. Some open source ILS serials control functions such as create subscription record, modify subscription, check-in issues, generate claims for missing issues, binding management and support for MARC-21 formats for holdings would greatly facilitate a librarian in better management of the serials control. With these automated functions, time spent on keeping track of subscriptions, missing issues, etc would be reduced, thus freeing the librarian to attend to other library activities and increase productivity.          

References:

Breeding, Marshall. 2008. Major source of ILS products.  Library Technolgy Reports, 

         44(8): 16-31.

Breeding, Marshall. 2011. Perceptions 2010: An international survey of library automation.

         Library Technology Guides. 

         http://www.librarytechnology.org/perceptions2010.pl?SID=2011040437506103  

         (accessed April 1, 2011).

Jaffe, Lee David and Greg Careaga. 2007. Standing up for open source. Library 

         Philosophy and Practice. LPP Special Issue on Libraries and Google. 

         http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/127/ (accessed April 2, 2011).

7^th entry

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?

The need to evaluate library software and criteria of evaluation

The necessity to evaluate library software before deciding to purchase it for my library is essential so that it will best meet and fit the needs of automating the library operations. I would need to know and do the following:

• What are the needs of my library? To analyze and identify those needs in order to find and select the best software package that suits my library.
• What types of library software are available in the market and the modules offered by each? And make a list of the available software packages for evaluation. Find out which software packages are popular and frequently used. One good source of information would be from “Library Technology Guides.”, however, local vendors would be sourced and considered.
• To study and make comparisons of their advantages and disadvantages from the list.
• To examine the modules offered by suppliers/vendors and to match them to my library’s needs.

Several critical factors that deserve consideration and analysis include:

• The cost of the hardware and software.
• The technical requirements, technical support services and the maintenance of the system.
• Is training provided by vendors/suppliers and how would it be conducted?
• Are there good user manual and documentation (printed materials)? Is the documentation available in other languages besides English, if needed, for example in Bahasa Malaysia or Chinese? Are the instructions clear and easy to follow?
• Security features such as password protected log-in for staff and patrons.
• Does the cost of the package and contract agreement include future systems upgrade?
• Is the system able to operate on various platforms such as Windows XP, Vista, etc?
• Is the system easy to use and are the features tried and tested?  
• Database used,  would it be easy for conversion to another system in future if there is a change in system used?
• The flexibility of the system in handling records that comes in variable length; is it flexible?
• Will it generate reports required by the library?
• The standards supported by the systems.
• To be alert on the limitations of the systems.

The credibility of vendors/suppliers and their performance would also need consideration. For this, I could find out from the libraries that use the system or even visit the libraries.  Reading up on reviews about the library software would also help me in the selection process of the package besides all of the above considerations and factors for evaluating the software. The next step would be short-listing vendors/suppliers selected and to send them RFP.

What to look for when evaluating library software?

The various modules for evaluation before purchase are (from lecture notes):

v     Acquisition

v     Cataloguing

v     Search and retrieval

v     Circulation

v     Serials control

For the evaluation of the five modules, I would develop a checklist for each module of each product, for example System A, System B and System C as follows:

Checklist of availability of features of acquisition module

	System A	System B	System C
Functions:
Receipt of request
Check for duplicates
Orders verification
Orders (reminders, cancellation)
Invoice processing and payment
Accession nos.
Reports:
Requests
Status of orders

Checklist of availability of features of cataloguing module

	System A	System B	System C
Functions:
Maintenance (titles-in-process, update holdings, subjects, and call numbers)
Data transfer to circulation and OPAC
Classification scheme/standard
User services and products such as SDI and bibliographies
Indexing (file, new records)
Stopword list
Editing/deleting or change of indexes
Reports:
New records
Catalog cards
Barcode labels
Call numbers for spine labels

Checklist of availability of features of information storage and retrieval module

	System A	System B	System C
Functions:
Searching tools, strategy (index or sequential, non-indexed, Boolean, proximity, truncated, range)
Indexing (how?, ways?)
Data output (format, etc)
Reports:
Lists of reference
Search results/output

Checklist of availability of features of circulation module

	System A	System B	System C
Functions:
Membership records
Transaction records (check-outs, check-ins, renewals)
Book reservations, overdue books
Calculation of fines and fines collected daily
Collection updates such as lost books, damaged and withdrawn items)
Inter library loan
User communication such as overdue items and collection of requests
Reports:
Membership lists (in various categories for example, staff or students)
Library membership card
Transaction history
Lost books list
Fines report

Checklist of availability of features of serials control module

	System A	System B	System C
Functions:
Subscription records
Orders (new or renewal)
Issues received
Monitoring claims of missing issues
Records of bound periodicals
Reports:
List of periodical holdings

To conclude this entry, suffice to say that before implementing library automation or changing to a new system, I would have to carry out careful and thorough study and planning before buying any library software. It is like “look before you leap”, otherwise the consequences can be costly.

References:

Library Technology Guides. 

         http://www.librarytechnology.org/?SID=20090325816253662&Username=&time            out=1237958682 (accessed March 8, 2011).

Noorhidawati Abdullah. “System implementation: ILS evaluation, site preparation & 
         retrospective conversion” Lecture, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, March 8, 
         2011.