Page 109 - DLIS007_LIBRARY AUTOMATION

Library Automation

Notes procedures. Building a collection of documents and kindred materials is a major and important
function of a library. In the earlier units, you have been exposed to some of the theoretical
aspects of collection building, such as principles of book selection, different types of documents
and selection tools that aid the process of selection, leading to a broad policy of book selection.
In this unit, you would learn the practical operations involved in the actual acquisition of the
various types of documents for the library.
The task of building up a collection of documents is entrusted to the acquisition section of a
library, which functions on the basis of the aims and objectives of the library and is in tune with
the general scope of the activities and services of the library. Acquisition work consists of a
series of operations, involving a number of routine jobs which have to be systematically planned
and operated.

6.1 Meaning of Acquisition

Acquisition of documents is one of the basic functions associated with any library. A library
must acquire and provide all the relevant documents to its users within its budgetary limitations.
An acquisition subsystem performs four basic operations. They are selection, ordering, receiving
and accessioning of documents. Let us try and understand as to how these operations are
performed in a library.
Ever since the Acquisition feature was incorporated into library systems, it has contributed to
savings of time and cost as well as labour. Most acquisition transactions such as ordering and
payment can be done electronically. It not only helps to reduce the amount of paper needed for
purchase orders and invoices, it also helps to facilitate filing and organising of forms in electronic
format, another time saving feature.

Notes Most libraries now expect to have a fully integrated acquisition module, which
includes pre-order searching, ordering, claiming, and cancellation of orders, receipt
processing, payment, routing, fund accounting, vendor accounting, currency control and
statistics report compilation.

With the emergence of new storage and entertainment media such as CD-ROM, CD, VCD and
DVD, libraries need their acquisition features to accommodate these new formats as well as
printed publications. Managing fund accounts is the most crucial and sensitive function of an
acquisition. Most libraries are non-profit organisations and most of their funds come from
either the government or the private sector or the general public. So they must manage their
finances carefully. Because of this, security issues have to be imposed to the system but at the
same time enable authorised librarians to create, update and close an account at any time, add or
remove amounts to or from the allocation at any time and permit freezing of funds with override
capabilities. The system must also calculate the average annual cost for categories of materials
by type, fund and subject heading. There are numerous ways for libraries to acquire materials
necessitating many types of orders.

!
Caution It is not possible for the system to generate all order types, but it must at least
accommodate the followings: Firm order, prepayment, and gift, and exchange,
membership, on approval, blanket order, standing order and subscription based.

104 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY