Automating the British Library - Case Study Example

Automating the British Library Name Institution Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Automating the British Library 3 Introduction 3 Planning and Organizing the Project 4 Requirement Report 4 Content of specification 7 Groups for the process 9 Project Scheduling 10 Resource Allocation 12 Changing the Schedule 12 Controlling Time, Cost and Cash Flow 13 Development in Project Management 14 Modules 15 Serial control module 17 Circulation module 17 Ad-on module 17 Acquisition module 18 Cataloging module 18 Conclusion 21 References 23 Automating the British Library Introduction Library automation is the utilization of semiautomatic automation data processing machines in performing traditional library activities that will include cataloguing, circulation and acquisition. The automation of a library is very useful to the librarians, students, administrators, faculty members and the society as a whole. According to Kocha (2007), a library is a center of resource that enhances and supports the school curriculum. With students becoming more computer savvy in this area there is need for library automation to take place to enhance quality services being offered to the students and moreover, it makes the work of the employees in the library easy and fast through quickening easy access to records. Library automation will make access to electronic sources easier and very convenient in all respect. Library automation is also an advantage because it makes the catalogues of the library to be accessed online and therefore potential customers know well in advance what is being offered to them and where they have any kind of doubts they are free to inquire in order to clear their doubts. Systems of management of a library that have been computerized have for long availed the needed infrastructure for delivering to customers for the services that are utilized frequently which include inter-library loans, registration, acquisitions and serials. Reynolds (2005) points out that a automating the library is geared towards eliminating the repetitive process of, for example, issuing and returning of books. As a result, the procedure of replacing or acquiring a system is the main professional activity of ensuring appropriate accuracy, functionality in ease of use and processing. All factors and stake holders should be put into consideration for an automation project to be successful. The proper and essential procedures for library automation must be followed in order to achieve the desired goals. This paper gives a clear guideline towards the automation of the British Library. All efforts have been put in to make sure that this assignment is a replica of the real situation on the ground (Simpson, 2008). Planning and Organizing the Project The first stage of going about library automation involves the definition of the requirements or the specification of the automation process considering the desired goals and the set objectives. As the identified team embarks on the project of automating the library they should have a mission and vision for the project. To get the precise requirements for the library automation projects it is important to carry out an appraisal of the current status. This will involve the statistics of access to material, total number of stock available, daily return and issue, service provided, duration of routine activities, and its effectiveness has to be studied to get a vivid picture of the current situation and address the shortcomings or problems in the new system of library automation. An important stage of the organization stage is to is getting in touch with a consultant firm to help the task forces and the review group understand clearly the market place of library automation, with the various services and products; of the designs and concepts of integrated systems; of stating the requirement of the system and the nuances of developing, and of the plans of the project (Pandey, 2009). Requirement Report There is need for a requirements report to be drafted by the review team and send to the consultant firm to determine its practicability or functionality. The consultant firm serves as a technical resource to the variety of groups of staff that have been given the mandate to look at the specific topics of system requirements and library automation. The proposed subsystems of the automation system have to be reviewed one after another. The requirements report will outline all the necessary resources that are needed for the project of automation and therefore make it possible to project the costs for the entire project. A typical outline of the Requirements report will appear as follows: 1. Introduction 2. System Overview (a) Bibliographic (b) Catalog inquiry (c) Circulation (d) Interlibrary loan (e) AV equipment and material booking (f) Acquisitions (g) Serials control (h) Cataloging (i) Online public access catalog (j) Referral and information (k) External data base access Administrative: (a) Word processing (b) Spread sheet (c) Payroll (d) General ledger (e) Report generator 3. System functions (a) Input (b) Update (c) Query 4. Information requirements (a) Inputs and outputs (b) Batch (c) Online (d) Interfaces with other systems (e) System data files 5. System design constraints (a) Hardware environment (b) Software environment (c) System growth requirements (d) Performance objectives (e) Adherence to standards 6. Implementation (a) Documentation (b) Vendor services (c) Supplies (d) Training (e) Acceptance procedures The consultant aid a library by going through a library automation process that is effective and designed to provide education to the project participants concerning the automation market place and the library system requirements. The analysis of the prevailing status in the library is very vital. The system study is carried out to assess the needs and status of library. It encompasses the gathering of data concerning the operations of the library, facilities, capacity, procedures, collections, and the expertise of the staff. Content of specification Various library automation writers have come out with a proposal for the content of specification and a majority of them seem to agree of the elements of specification to include: (a) Requirement for functionality, comprising of desirable and mandatory system functions (b) Software and hardware platform (c) Response time required (d) Requirement for training and support (e) Networking requirements (f) Timescale for implementation (g) Technical documentation and user manuals (h) Contract condition (i) Timetable for evaluation process (j) User satisfaction with software/vendor (k) Vendor vision (l) Institution stability and supplier finances (m) Instruction to suppliers on the way of responding to the proposals (n) Evaluation procedure and evaluation criteria (o) Vision statement of the library (p) The library environment/context (q) Statics in the library The significance of designing the specification with outermost care and adequate reference to colleagues who are familiar with the system or have used the new system is focused on by practitioners who have vast experience in the library automation process, besides the changing to subsequent systems. According to Heiliger and Henderson (2007), a specification that is good should state all the requirements concisely, clearly, unambiguously, and logically. It has to include adequate information for potential suppliers to make a decision and cost the services and goods they are able to offer; allow services and goods offered to be examined against a designed criteria by evaluation, test, documentation or trial; state the acceptance criteria of supplies by trial, examination, documentation or test; comprise of only the essential characteristics or features of the requirement; avail equal chance for all potential suppliers to offer a service or product which takes care of the needs of the user and which encompass alternative technical solutions; and subsequently comply with any obligation by the law (Head & McCabe, 2006). The vision statement for the library represents the future dream for the library. It is clear picture of what the library is expected to look like in the near future after the automation process. This is derived from the mission of the library, the users’ needs and the changing trends in the services of the library. The vision gives the philosophy and direction for the library. Some specification will consist of a procurement process in their system. Such kind of content will comprise of general comments on procurement and specification process, procedure of organization and implementation which will involve the acceptance tests. Groups for the process The review of the group is made up of key individuals who represent elements that are critical of technical, operational and policy concerns; it will be responsible for making final decisions in relations to the definition of the project, its objectives, goals, and system requirements statement. The members of the review group will constitute of board members, library management, data processing experts from computer center, faculty, industry and the government. At this stage it is also important to come up with an evaluation team whose members is almost the same as the review group or it may be a subset of the review group. The evaluation team makes the final evaluation proposals, vendors’ looking at the report of the task forces. The task forces are other groups that must be formed. These consist of other project participants and staff that are organized as per subsystem, for instance, online public access catalog and circulation or subsystems groups. Task forces are in charge of finalizing the requirement report section assigned to them; and later on evaluate the assigned part of the vendors’ proposal, and give a report of the evaluation to the evaluation team. The negotiation team is also important. Its membership may be similar to the evaluation team, or just a subset. The group has the responsibility of negotiation the suitable contracts for services and systems (Huang, 2003). The final group is the formal library management and it has the responsibility of successfully implementing the programs that have been developed by the planning process of library automation, and for assimilating the project into the prevailing system management and governance. It is vital to carryout a feasibility study to determine the workability of the project. The feasibility study will include economic feasibility, operational feasibility, and technical feasibility of the automation project. Project Scheduling Scheduling of the project involves definition for accomplishment of specific tasks within specified time limits. The whole project of library automation will involve the following in the order listed: 1. Statement of requirement 2. Request for Proposal issuance 3. Proposal evaluation 4. Contracting/negotiating for system 5. Production of the final definition of the project, budget and a schedule that indicates plans of implementing the system selected. This will involve: (a) Technical (b) Organizational (c) Financial 6. The execution of the agreements in the contract. Library automation is a process that requires definition of objectives, goals, schedules and budgets, and simultaneously, it is a social process that should demonstrate acceptance, understanding, approval and the support of the persons within the environment of the library who make or are in any way affected by the decision of automating. The framework of library automation process will involve multiple activities sometime occurring simultaneously. The statement of the requirement is the initial stage and lays the foundation for the whole project. The goals and objectives of the process are clearly defined. What follows is the issuing of proposal that will be consequently evaluated at the proposal evaluation stage. This is done to pick out the best proposal that investors are willing to fund and the suppliers are also willing to provide their goods and services. When it reaches at the contracting/negotiating for the system; the best system developer for the library is picked among many who were interested. Prior to informing the vendor that they have been selected, it is important to negotiate the contract terms and the price. A majority of the vendors of software are willing to negotiate their prices. After all that is done the schedule and the budget for the project can be determined putting in consideration the estimation in the process. The final part is the execution of the project. The whole process can take up to a year or some months depending on the requirements stated and the kinds of proposal that have been received. The requirements have to be revised to obtain a final decision on them. After the specification of requirements the appropriate system is selected, implemented and then evaluated to see whether it meets the objectives of the research. Resource Allocation The resource allocation will depend on the specification and the requirement determined previously. The costs that will be incurred in the acquisition of the different components of the library automation system will make up the total amount of resource to be allocated to the project. These types of costs to be allocated resources will include: (a) Consulting and planning costs (b) Purchase of system-software and hardware (c) Costs of internet connection (d) Purchase of network-cabling, software and specific hardware (e) Manual record conversion into machine-readable form (f) Subscriptions where appropriate and access to external systems and databases (g) Operating costs that are ongoing (h) Maintenance of system software and hardware Looking at the above costs, the acquisition and allocation of the necessary resources will depend purely on them. The project management can estimate the costs after getting the quotations from the vendors and the various system providers. After an RFP process a clear decision can be reached on the kind of system to be installed and what are the costs implications to the institution. Changing the Schedule The schedule that has been initially drafted at the inception of the project will change basing on the ease of difficult in the acquisition of the relevant subsystem and the technical experts needed to install the system. The assembling of the necessary requirements after specification will determine the pace at which the implementation of the process will move until it is officially launched. The training time of the employees of the library to familiarize them with the automated system will also have to be factored into the schedule of the project implementation. Controlling Time, Cost and Cash Flow The time period for accomplishment of the various subsystems of the automated library will be determined by the input of the stakeholders and the experts contracted to lay down the infrastructure of library automation. The cost that will be demanded by the suppliers will be dependent on the specification and the requirements that were clearly defined at the planning stage. Every response to RFP delivered to a supplier is estimated to cost US$ 7,200. This will cover the cost of the supplied system. It is not easy to make accurate costs estimation and consequently the library automation system management will leave the procurement procedures to the vendors through submission of the RFP to firms in justification of the system that should be purchased. It is not easy to quantify the cost incurred by a library in the process of acquiring an automated library system. Addition costs will emerge from time and effort spent in the expansion of the library. To cut down on the cost spent on the RFP process many people are moving away from it. It also requires a large staff since many experts are involved. The RFPs have also to contain a lot of information which sometime is not very necessary. It is prudent to have an initial estimate of the costs which could be around US$ 100,000. The Request for Proposal document is a very essential tool will is utilized in the assessment the details of what the vendors are offering. If the RFP process is used then it will be necessary to through several of them in order to choose the specific vendors who will supply a specific system to integrated system. The budget that will be developed will include Data conversion costs, ILS software product costs and necessary platform software and hardware. Development in Project Management Project management is the process that involves organizing, planning, controlling and leading a project in such a way that the desired outcomes ca be met safely within the specified budget and timeframe. It ensures that the delivery of project is done in an effective manner. The phases of the project may include: initiation, definition, execution and post analysis. The station of the automated library will need to be somewhere where the internet or network circulation is not interfered with. The hardware material will include the CPUs and desktops to will form part of the input and output system. The security, access and climate of the location of the automated library will be very important. A sample outlook of the library physical configuration will appear as below: The circulation workstation is for the staff of the library to check-in and check-out items and other activity. The staff workstation will comprise activities such as reporting, acquisition and cataloging. The public workstation is for the teachers/students to access the CD-ROM network, Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) and/or the Internet. Each workstation will have the following components: (a) Network card (b) Hard disk (c) RAM (d) Pentium PC (e) Operating system e.g. Windows (f) Sound card and CD-ROM drive Modules The specification refers to all the standard core modules of library management system which include: OPAC, catalogue, circulation, acquisitions, serials, information management, and inter-library loans. The specification should state the requirement for additional features and functions, which may include advance bookings and community information module. An automated library system is made up of modules such as circulation, cataloging, OPAC, reporting and serial control. Despite these modules being integrated in one system they are usually sold separately. It is anticipated that the acquired system will come with the circulation and cataloging module. The serials and acquisition modules can be procured elsewhere. Although the reporting capabilities can come with the purchased system, the ability to create custom reports and the number of report to be created will have to be designed according to the desired objective and the desired outcome of the library automation system. The inventory feature can also come with the procured system. The Web-based OPAC in a client-server system will be acquired at an additional cost, while in ASP solution it comes when it is standard (Information Science and Automation Division (ISAD) (2007). The functions to be automated are shown in the figure below: The systems that will be integrated in the library automation system include acquisition system, circulation system, cataloging system, serial control system, add-on module and OPAC. Serial control module In an Integrated Library System, serial control plays a role that is omnipotent. It organizes and manages the orders to the respective vendors, keeps track on the part of accounting and preparation of statistical information as the requirement. It avails an expert system that keeps track of the periodicals that are not received and comes up with a claim. Circulation module It takes care of circulation activities that include return, rending, place on hold, renewal, and reservation. It manages the material in the library that comprises of location, circulation type, status, profiles, patron type, privileges and other functions like payment and computation of overdue fines and lost books. Functions that may be added include export, import, restore and backup functions for the inventory, databases, generation of report, and support of ILL standards, Z39.50, and MARC. It might support the integration with systems of security that complement the self-check-in and check-out features of the circulation module (Gopal, 2005). Ad-on module The vendor will often offer functions and features that are additional but optional to the functions that are basic or as part of a module that is integral. This is through ILL, Ex. Inventory, export/import of records by MARC formats, Web OPAC, and systems of security integrated or linked to the circulation/cataloging module. Acquisition module It automates the process of acquisition such as receiving, ordering, claiming materials from suppliers/vendors and cancelling of material of library during the time of order for purchase. It is also used to maintain statistics and in particular cases manage the activities of accounting. Cataloging module It is concerned with storage, creation, management and storage of indexes and records of bibliography. According to Riaz (2005) it defines the record in a format that is more specific. It is used in the databases and provides for authority control of subject headings, author and many others. Often there are two different interfaces for retrieval and search of electron catalog: For users: It allows them to search and display the outcomes on (OPAC). For catalogers: It allows them in the maintenance of the library database (main cataloging module). An example of input functions in the automated library is shown in the figure below; An illustration of the output displayed on the computer screen will be as follows: The Machine Readable Cataloging (MARC) standard permits the library to share bibliographic resources with other centers of information. The standard put in place by a library and its community allows interchange of data information centers and libraries via a special format which is supported by all systems. MARC enables libraries to migrate easily to commercially library automation systems available, many of which can only support MARC standard. A record of bibliography which is MARC will permit the library automation system to: (a) Correctly format information for the printing a catalog cards set or for displaying the outcome on the screen of the computer. (b) Retrieve and search for specific types of information in particular fields. (c) Display items lists as needed by the search. An example of such an integrated system is as follows: (Head, 2006). The last stage of the implementation process will involve the review of the library automation to determine if it has met the desired outcomes within the specified period of time. Conclusion The need for library automation can not be understated. Library automation leads to increased efficiency on the staff of the library. It improves the speed, effectiveness, accuracy and quality of services in the library. It makes the users to get easer access to other systems and networks on the web. Apart from smoothing the progress of dissemination of information services and products that is wider, it also facilitates access to information that is widened for the potential clients. This paper has explored the whole process of library automation. It has been noted that getting requirements report and content specification is very import in the planning for library automation. Assembling the relevant groups for the accomplishments of the project of the automation system is very important. These groups can include evaluation team, task forces, review group, library management team, board members, and the expert technical team. The automation process will comprise of the acquisition of subsets systems and the verification of the vendors to determine the validity of the feasibility study to determine how the project will be successful. The vendors offer training that is very vital to the staff of the library. The different modules that constitute the automation system include circulation, cataloging, serial control, and ad-on module. The scheduling of the project should be done to allow for adjustment in regard with the requirements of the automation process. The timeline for the project ca not be ultimately determined as it depends on the various stakeholders of the project. Resource allocation should be done according to the requirement costs of the whole projects and other factors like outsourcing and importing. The evaluation team will keep the review team update with the progress of the project. References Kocha R, R.S. (2007). Library automation: (issues and systems). New Delhi: APH Publishing. Riaz, M. (2005). Library automation. Rajouri Garden: Atlantic Publishers & Distri. Head, J.W. (2006). Introducing and managing academic library automation projects. New Jersey: Greenwood Publishing Group. Reynolds, D. (2005). Library automation: issues and applications. Charleston: Bowker. Pandey, S.K. (2009). Encyclopedia of Library Automation Systems and Networks. Central Delhi: Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd. Heiliger, M.E. & Henderson, B.P. (2007). Library automation: experience, methodology, and technology of the library as an information system. New Jersey: McGraw-Hill. Gopal, K. (2005). Modern library automation. New Delhi: Authorspress. Simpson, G.A. (2008). Microcomputers in library automation: final report. Dolley Madison: MITRE Corp., Metrek Division. Huang, T.S. (2003). Modern library technology and reference services. New York: Routledge. Khochar, R.S. (2009). Modern Cataloguing, (Systems And Practices). Daryaganj: Discovery Publishing House. Eberhart, G.M. (2006). Whole library handbook four. Chicago: ALA Editions. Mittal, S. (2005). Modern Library: Administration and Automation. New Delhi: Ess Ess Publications. Chaudhary, S.K. (2004). Modern library strategies. New Delhi: APH Publishing. Head, W.J. & McCabe, G.B. (2006). Introducing and managing academic library automation projects. New Jersey: Greenwood Publishing Group. Information Science and Automation Division (ISAD) (2007). Journal of library automation. Washington, D.C: American Library Association. Read More