Page 230 - DLIS007_LIBRARY AUTOMATION

Unit 12: Library Automation Services

made more efficient through the introduction of electronic document delivery. The document Notes
delivery service is an integration of document discovery, the location of a supplier, request and
delivery. It takes many forms, deals with variety of formats and involves a number of
intermediaries.

Outreach Services

Outreach services aim to automate the processes required to deliver materials to the homebound
and other patrons who cannot physically enter the library. Automated library systems also offer
community information services in the form of list of names and addresses of local organisations
or persons, local leisure facilities, employment etc.

12.2.2 MIS Support Services

Library management software deals with and contains huge amount of data related to documents,
staff and users. This database when extracted, summarised and analysed may help various
management activities like planning, decision making etc.

Notes Automation packages generate reports (standard and customised) and statistics to
help library managers to investigate various management issues.
The important reports and statistics are:

Reports of item(s) requested by users and supplied by vendors/publishers;
Reports on order status, overdue items, vendor performance, budget analysis etc.;
Statistics related to exchange rate and price changes, average item cost etc.;

Reports on items issued, returned and reserved over a period and transaction history of
members;
Reports and statistics on most frequently issued items and most frequently visited members;
and
Reports on title history for journals and journal usage by members.
Most automated systems offer a set of standard reports relating to transactions in various modules
of the system.

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Caution Apart from standard reports, library managers require producing ad-hoc reports
and customised reports that facilitate statistical analysis of data.
12.2.3 Digital Media Archiving

The digital archiving system enables users to access stored materials in the form of text, image,
audio and video clips quickly from their desktop using a web browser. The services of a typical
digital media archiving system are as follows:
It allows full text and metadata based searching of textual information with natural
language query;

It links full text digitised documents with library catalogue;

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