The Process of Workflow in the Library Electronically - Term Paper Example

Library and Information Sector Customer Inserts His/Her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name Insert Date Here (Day, Month, Year) Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………….3 Policies…………………………………………………………………………..3 Organization of Titles………………………………………………………….4 Electronic Library Economics………………………………………………...5 Costing Factor in Electronic Sector of Library………………………………6 Setting of priorities in Administrative Set up………………………………...7 Making Navigation convenient for Customers……………………………….9 Advancements in the Linking Facilities……………………………………...10 Issues Regarding Security, Authentication and Authorization……………………………………………11 Issue of Personalization………………………………………….………….…12 Adequate Use of the Workflow………………………………………………..12 Need For National Initiatives…………………………………………………13 Need For Maintaining Technological Competent Staff……………………..14 Adequate Marketing Strategies………………………………….…………...14 Conclusion……………………………………………………….....…………..15 Reference List………………………………………………………………….16 . Introduction Electronic service is one of the major sectors gaining predominance in libraries of today and its management is one of the biggest issues especially for administrators of the University library. Many of the libraries in United Kingdom have electronic section maintaining and organizing records and books in the various categories electronically making readers access to the same easily. But maintaining the records electronically involve many complex issues requiring need for more innovative services and processes in the management for acquisition while making easy access to the sources and retaining bibliographic records and sharing of resources between libraries and on the same hand bringing revolutionary change in the way books were accessed and managed. But these changes also brought with it number of challenges and issues. In the following report, I would be mentioning several issues which administration faces while in the process of workflow in the library electronically. Support to the Teachers, Academic library works in a close coordination with the departments and also provide support to the teachers and fulfill research objectives. Information librarian gives all the support to the teachers to access the books or other materials required by the teachers from the database electronically. Information librarians provides specialists and even individual assistance in finding information to t he teachers. Information Librarians offer specialist, individual assistance with finding information for your study and research. Support for Research Many libraries in the United Kingdom has several research databases having online open access towards the collection of research materials. Several of the publications are also openly accessed and could be cited regularly. The records of their research banks are indexed by Google and other search engines. The issues can crop up in the record management systems that could result in confusions and dull uniformity but this happened when the systems are not implemented with planning. There could also be instances when the events or programs are found outdated and navigation links are dead. These issues could have serious repercussions during research activities. Policies In many of the libraries of UK still there is a need to follow various selection procedures and airing of the e-materials. A clear standard or norm should be set for the selection of the materials and there is a need to see what judgments need to be made on the issues of the content and complete functionality regarding the e-resource. Administration needs to handle several kinds of issues ranging from technical requirements towards the issues related to the organization of various e-materials, training of the staff and the various implications of the support. For e.g. At the University of Nottingham, there is clear protocol for the selection of the e-journals, which involves analysis by the librarian about the subjects against set criteria. (Pinfield 2001: Online). The support to the teachers are given according to these set standard norms but in many libraries there is a flexibility in the standards while providing support to t he teachers. Organization of Titles Most important characteristic of the electronic resource is the way volumes of titles are organized in maximum number of electronic subscriptions. ScienceDirect Elsevier, an electronic journal has on an approximate 1000 journal titles, e-book vendor has around 40,000 e-book titles of various topics and subjects, along with that ProQuest constitutes more than 4,000 publications from more than 3000 partners etc. (Missingham 2001: Online) In the traditional library, the tangible resources like monographs, serials, audio, and video materials are arranged and managed in a very systematic way for review and selection in the form of subject bibliographies, order placement with a vendor and verification upon receipt for acquisitions, cataloging and proper shelving for description, processing and circulation respectively. This flow from one unit or process to another unit is very suitable for tangible resources and is done by paraprofessional employees. This workflow is managed internally by Library Integrated Library System (ILS) to accomplish main purpose of payments, order tracking, budget encumbrances, catalogue access and inventory. (Yu & Breivold 2008: 18) As opposed to it, it is found that “there is no mechanism in ILS to give notification to the library of non receipt or availability of resource to the library user.” (Yu & Breivold 2008: 18) There is nothing tangible for workflows for electronic resources. But management of the title has become the most crucial issue when title needs to be added or deleted on regular basis, besides, issues in the journal also change quite frequently basically in digitization of retrospective materials and these changes are then needed to be incorporated in the catalogue to make students get access to all the materials subscribed by the library. Electronic Library Economics We will first take an issue of electronic library economics in other words dealing with the pricing models. Till now electronic section of the libraries is still at immature stage with non-stabilized prices for e.g. e-journals, because there are variations in the prices for e-journals like single, or many as per the subject or as many libraries may call ‘take or leave it packages’. These level of prices are generally fixed on basis of the complex formula which in turn are based according to the print subscriptions, yet the basis on which pricing are fixed are yet not clear? Will the price be considered by looking at its readership, or by the number of users reading the books or by the size of the community and if it is so then to look at the way size is calculated. Library should take various aspects to develop the ideas on the way pricing model is framed for every e-resource. It is a common assumption that bringing books electronically would save time and money in-fact even the Follett report came out with the conclusion that electronically prescribed books can most efficiently save time and money. He wrote after analyzing about the rise in number of people taking interest in choosing the books electronically but it is quite contradictory, as the e-library neither saves money nor time. Expenses involved in e-journal are seven or eight percent more than existing paper subscriptions. The electronic short loans provided for digitized texts are very expensive and involve lot of administrative pressure. Coming e-book services like that of NetLibrary have also fixed prices, which are for more than prices of paper. Moreover VAT is also levied on the electronic resources whereas printed publications are exempted from it. (Pinfield 2001: Online) It is true that, “The costs of establishing and maintaining an online publishing operation are considerable: computer and telecommunications equipment that needs replacing every two or three years, and the cost of technical staff to run the system. The major part of the cost of publishing a journal lies in facilitating peer review, editing and typesetting, and subscription management. These costs are borne whether the journal is output in print or electronically.” (Chen, Wrynn & Rieke 2001: Online) for e.g. British Library also has all the features and essay accessibility online for all the purposes, giving adequate support for research work and teachers. Costing Factor in Electronic Sector of Library Electronic library may formulate new and improved services for users benefit but they do not come out cheap and with latest technologies there is all the more necessity for libraries to keep their pace with the change and making reading every time the most pleasant experience. It is also of utmost importance to keep users informed about pricing and expenses involved in upkeep of the section making administration capable to garner their support for any future investments. Issue crops up because of the ignorance among users regarding the way electronic resources are paid which may result in misconceptions. For a normal user, content on Internet is available to them for free and is easily accessible therefore users generally forget that they are getting this content at a price. It is suggested that all users and persons involved in maintenance and upkeep of the e-resources should have knowledge about the amount invested in the site and the total cost involved in it. Hereby it should also be noted that it is not just level of funding but also the structure of funding that should be taken care of. In most of the libraries, funds are allocated to different budget heads according to the formula considering into account factors like number of students, staff numbers and prices of book. It is suggested therefore that the library funding allocation model is constructed in a way to make sure that libraries possess flexibility to act to the available deals making it convenient for users. (Pinfield 2001: Online) Setting of priorities in Administrative Set up Libraries should appraise themselves on priority basis while allocating their budgets and many also argue that there is a need to reexamine priorities set for the staff, as they are made to devote much of their time in collections or cataloging web browsers which is unnecessary time wastage. As said by John MacColl, “If we are to be persuasive in the world of digital information in which we now present our services as ‘hybrid libraries’…we have to be much quicker.” He further said that the cataloguing of ‘toll-gated’ electronic information – e-journals and e-books –should be given highest priority for our cataloguing departments”. (Pinfield 2001: Online) Integrating different components of the library into one whole structure is a basic part of the administrative network and is biggest challenge to deal with. This issue is resolved with the help of e-Lib hybrid library projects but with this project there is a need to think how the relationship needs to be established between the Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) and rest of the elements of the e-library and whether the system should get a place at the center of the library or is yet another form of database. For e.g. many libraries has set up their websites just at the entrance to give easy access to the users for rest of the available resources. Many of these sites have direct links to e-journals, CD-ROMs and quality web resources. Hereby libraries also give consideration to the placement of the records of all the items, whether they should be placed on their OPAC or these items need to be accessed via the library website? It has become a very common practice on the part of the libraries to establish their databases just behind their websites to get easy access to these sources. In this way, websites are also acting like a search tool giving much similar look to the OPAC interfaces. (Pinfield 2001: Online) Making Navigation Convenient for Customers Libraries also have to make navigation between the different sources like several kinds of books, digital textual resources, mapping, sound, moving image materials or statistical data easy creating it user friendly and beautiful. They have to design out the most suitable navigation system by making use of various cross-searching methods and linking technologies. The solution to the problem is now being conceived by the protocol designed for the exchange of bibliographic data, but it is not widely used especially in United Kingdom. (Pinfield 2001: Online). This whole process makes the research work convenient. The system functions like an engine with incorporated asset based protocol system according to the rules and formats defined for the exchange of data to easily use asset documents. There is also a front-end system enabling a graphical user interface for the convenience of the users. Besides, there is also an intellectual based asset database to keep many of the intellectual asset objects and other related information. The intellectual asset protocol system works by interacting with an Intellectual Property Asset Manger (IPAM) server. (Hershey,. Hassan & Hladik 1997: Online) The major blockade in the use of the protocol system comes while performing of the function of the exchange of holdings and serial data. Notwithstanding many other issues and inconsistencies can also crop while implementing it. The same problem is coming with the use of the Z39.50 which has proved to be more complex to implement than was expected four years back. (Pinfield 2001: Online) Along with this there are several issues in the way protocol is implemented. Advancements in the Linking Facilities As and as advancements are being made in the technology and so the advancements are being made in the creation of the new linking facilities. Most of these facilities create links between several datasets especially between bibliographic and full text resources. These links are also now being provided by many database providers making convenient for the library users to establish and maintain these links. Here too several issues crop up as these linking services involve great amount of time and labour, along with this they are very difficult to maintain, as they are very complex and patchy. On many occasions, the links created by one data supplier does not match up with the library subscription creating what is known as copy problem. But this problem is now getting resolved with coming of OpenURL system, which has lot of potentials enabling users to easily navigate between the information, content and other resources available for them. This system became a foundation and a base for many other systems and products like Ex Libris SFX product. It is the most popular link server and linking solution for more than 1500 libraries all over the world. It provides links to the articles and other library resources including online public access catalog and other web based resources and several other related services. It has Ex Libris’ MetaLib used along with SFX, WebExpress / iPort from OCLC, and Fretwell Downing’s VDX/Agora product. They perform hybrid library like functionality, which could be made available for the first time by e-commercial products instead of developing in-house. They have created new space for more libraries to give many other integrated services. (Pinfield 2001: Online) Issues Regarding Security, Authentication and Authorization Another major technical issue that has major service implication is security, authentication and authorization. It is the most crucial issue and the biggest challenge faced by any organization. Many of these libraries use authentication relying on the IP addresses and is not only easier but its implementation is also very easy but there are certain disadvantages also in it as regards its easy susceptibility to address spoofing whereby the incoming IP packages have forged addresses. (Collins & Carr 2008: 207) Secondly it has been found that these IP addresses are associated with the network domain of the subscribing organization, posing hindrance for the bonafide users to get access to these resources from systems, which are off campus. (Collins & Carr 2008: 207) The writers says that “This in turn makes institution to set up a Web proxy which connects to the e-resource site wit h an accepted IP address on behalf of the end user but in fact they are hiding the initial IP address from the vender”. (Collins & Carr 2008: 208) The second way of providing authentication is through providing username and password, and that’s too is itself not without problems because users have to remember username and password authority. Copy laws have been initiated to give the right to the creator as well as right to the public to attain knowledge and expression. (Driscoll 2004: 2) The system used nationally for authentication like that of Athens has made lot of improvements in this regard in the UK but still this system is not been universally used by the data providers and also difficult to adjust for the internal needs of the institutions. But the hopes lie in Sparta. (Pinfield 2001: Online) Issue of Personalization Similarly, challenging is the issue of personalization, whereby it needs to be seen the extent to which e-intervention of users is required. Much of this has become quite important for institutions that are looking at the development of the portal type facilities to incorporate various kinds of services. Often users react to the suggestion that they would now be able to formulate services according to their own needs but practically users very rarely do this but some initial spade work can be done by producing them with most fundamental information and services. While this process should be done in a most sensitive way, it is more effective making it compulsory for users to accomplish it themselves but precaution needs to be taken regarding security and protection of data. Adequate Use of the Workflow All delivery of the resources electronically is done with help of the infrastructure, hardware and expertise provided by computing services in universities. Therefore it is utmost important that the workflow in the library must be carried out in close connection with the computing services. The partnership during these organizations can take various forms like organizational mergers to strategic alliances and often they need to adjust themselves according to the need of the time. Hereby establishing of the bigger team, project based working environment, forming flat structures and creating improvement in the communication channels are the elementary tasks libraries are carrying out. While during the process of the integration of the hybrid library and various other services, the need is also felt to create Managed Learning Environment (MLE). (Pinfield 2001: Online) It is a system that makes the learning and teaching process convenient and easy and this could happen by providing resources and tools online. To make the program a success, it is very important to have senior members of staff to provide resources, training and guidance to the university MLE group. Sometimes on account of the involvement of different kinds of people, connections are missed. These issues are often dealt at the local level and practically there is also requirement for the members of staff from the library to get themselves actively involved in the development process of MLE. Need For National Initiatives Here it is also need to be pointed out that the national initiatives are required for the local development of the e-library particularly Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER). (Pinfield 2001: Online) As the development of the DNER takes place, the most crucial question that arises is the way institutes should be integrated with the services; the best example of this is the Resource Discovery Network, which performs the function of coordinating the various hubs. (Pinfield 2001: Online) Need For Maintaining Technological Competent Staff Besides efficient technical support, it is also utmost need to maintain the efficient and technologically skilled staff. Information professionals and the staff are required to acquire much greater skills than before with many of the e-Lib projects highlighting these issues. It becomes responsibility of the staff to address the issues regarding the training and retaining of the staff in their duties. A library staff member should have sound knowledge about the electronic sources and whether they are meeting the requirement of the users and are proactive in their approach towards them. They also need to be well conversant with the variety of formats using multimedia as a tool, they should have a sound knowledge of all the sources and they should have very good communicators, team players, evaluators or negotiators. These roles require them to acquire the skills like technical IT skills, professional skills, flexibility, having ability to work under pressure, attaining of the communication skills, presentation skills and a great vision. Adequate Marketing Strategies Notwithstanding technical issues, adopting of the appropriate marketing strategy is the most crucial issue in front of the administration whereby there is a need to find out number of users using electronic sources and the kind of people using sources like students or professionals. In order to make sure that quality resources are being used effectively and widely, it is important to have adequate marketing strategies with formal and informal mechanism to make sure that the purchased resources are meeting requirements of the clients and they are being used. There is also a need to provide assistance to users to navigate the resources else the students and other users landed in the less quality resources would be disgusted. The information professional should play an important role in providing guidance and training to the users to help them find high quality resources. Conclusion Since last ten years, library and other related information services are adopting new technologies in their administrative as well as in client servicing making the whole setup convenient for users. These libraries are entering into the fast moving and innovative set up while at the same time delivering consistent servicing but to achieve this would involve highly skilled and energetic technical staff enabling to work in the adaptive and flexible structure. Collection of the materials in the library is done in many formats like websites, Internet sites and homepages making them general, flexible and adaptable to the technological changes and at the same time making them user friendly. Reference List Chen, F. L., Wrynn, P. & Rieke, J.L. 2001. Electronic journal access: how does it affect the print subscription price. [Online] Available: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=57965 [5 February 2009] Collins, M.D.D. & Carr, P. L. 2008. Managing the Transition from Print to Electronic. Oxon: Routledge. Driscoll, L. 2004. Electronic Reserve: A Manual and Guide for Library Staff Members. New York: Haworth Press. Hanson, T & Day J.M. 1998. Managing the Electronic Library: A Practical Guide for Information Professionals. East Grinstead, West Sussex: Bowker-Saur. Johnston, W.K. 1999. Library and Learning Resource Programs: Evaluation and Self-Study. American Library Association. Missingham, R. 2001. Electronic Resources: New Issues for Library Systems with New Solutions. [Online] Available: http://www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/2001/missingham2.html [4 February 2009] Pinfield, S. 2001. Managing electronic library services: current issues in UK higher education institutions. [Online] Available: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue29/pinfield/intro.html [4 February 2009] Roitberg, N. 2000. Influence of the Electronic Library on Library Management: A technological university library experience. [Online] Available: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/050-132e.htm [5 February 2009] Hershey, J. E., Hassan, A. A. & Hladik, S.M. 1997. Protocol and mechanism for centralized asset tracking communications. [Online] Available: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5633875.html [5 February 2009] Yu, H. & Breivold, S. 2008. Electronic Resource Management in Libraries: Research and Practice. London: Informational Science Reference. . Read More