Page 142 - DLIS108_INFORMATION_AND_COMMUNICATION_TECHNOLOGY_APPLICATIONS

VED1
e\L-lovely-eng\comm14-1.pmd IInd 16-9-11 IIIrd 27-12-11 IVth 4-1-12

Unit 14: Selected Library Packages: Winisis, .........

14.3 Soul
Notes
Software for University Libraries (SOUL) is a state-of-the-art integrated library management software
designed and developed by the INFLIBNET Centre based on requirements of college and university
libraries. It is a user-friendly software developed to work under client-server environment.
The software is compliant to international standards for bibliographic formats, networking and
circulation protocols. After a comprehensive study, discussions and deliberations with the senior
professionals of the country, the software was designed to automate all house keeping operations
in library.

The software is suitable not only for the academic libraries, but also for all types and
sizes of libraries, even school libraries. The first version of software i.e. SOUL 1.0 was
released during CALIBER 2000. The database of the SOUL 1.0 is designed on MS-SQL
and is compatible with MS SQL Server 7.0 or higher. The latest version of the software
i.e. SOUL 2.0 will be released by the end of the year 2008. The database for new version
of SOUL is designed for latest versions of MS-SQL and MySQL (or any other popular
RDBMS). SOUL 2.0 is compliant to international standards such as MARC 21
bibliographic format, Unicode based Universal Character Sets for multilingual
bibliographic records and NCIP 2.0 based protocols for electronic surveillance and
control.

Major Features and Functionalities
Following are the strong features of SOUL:
• UNICODE based multilingual support for Indian and foreign languages;
• Compliant to International Standards such as MARC21, AACR-2, MARCXML;
• Compliant to NCIP 2.0 protocol for RFID and other related applications especially for elec-
tronic surveillance and self check-out & check-in;
• Client-server based architecture, user-friendly interface that does not require extensive train-
ing;
• Supports multi-platform for bibliographic database such as My SQL, MS-SQL or any other
RDBMS;
• Supports cataloguing of electronic resources such as e-journals, e-books, virtually any type of
material;
• Supports requirements of digital library and facilitate link to full-text articles and other digi-
tal objects;
• Support online copy cataloguing from MARC21 supported bibliographic database;
• Provides default templates for data entry of different type of documents. User can also cus-
tomize their own data entry templates for different type of documents;
• Provides freedom to users for generating reports of their choice and format along with tem-
plate and query parameters;
• Supports ground-level practical requirements of the libraries such as stock verification, book
bank, vigorous maintenance functions, transaction level enhanced security, etc.;
Provides facility to send reports through e-mail, allows users to save the reports in various formats
such as Word, PDF, Excel, MARCXML, etc.;

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 137