Indian Journal of Library and Information Science Volume 5 Number 3, October-December 2011

Developing an Online Public Access Catalogue: a case study of Mangalore University Library

S.S. Kumbar* T. Y. Mallaiah**

ABSTRACT The paper describes the efforts made by Mangalore University Library in developing the Web OPAC. The re-cataloguing process carried out by the staff due to the policy decision to change the catalogue code from CCC to AACR-II was mentioned. The process of preparing the collection for library automa- tion was explained. Diffi culties faced while creating catalogue database using LIBSYS have been men- tioned. The utility of the Web OPAC for the users have been stated. The impact of web technologies on the user needs have been identifi ed. It was suggested for augmenting the web technologies for design- ing the future OPACs keeping in mind the changes in the user expectations. Finally the paper stressed the need for maintaining the regular backup of the entire database.

Key words: OPAC 2.0, Web OPAC

INTRODUCTION The users needs are varied and ever changing they expect the library catalogue to be more convenient Library catalogue has been considered as an ul- to use, easy to access and a tool for the retrieval of timate tool for identifying and locating the sources accurate information with greater speed. This has of information available at the library. At the begin- necessitated the librarians to adopt new technolo- ning of the twentieth century Cutter (1953) [1] stated gies and make the library catalogue as much user three basic purposes of a library catalogue. They are friendly as possible. This has brought in revolution- –i) to enable a person to fi nd a book of which the ary changes in the physical as well as inner forms of author or the title or the subject is known; ii) to show the library catalogue over the years. what the library has by given author, on a given sub- The change in the physical form could be noticed ject, in a given kind of literature; and iii) to assist in very early in the history of library catalogues. It the choice of a book -as to its edition (bibliographi- started from the book form of catalogue to loose leaf cally) and -as to its character (literary or topical). In form, later the card catalogue. The card form of cata- addition to its functions as bibliographical tool, the logue seems to be a longstanding one which has had catalogue may also serve as inventory and fi nding greater impact on the users compared to the other lists for the library collection. two. However, University of California Bibliogra- phy Services Task Force (2005:1) [2] reported that, Author’s Affi laition: *Deputy Librarian, Mangalore University the current library catalog is poorly designed for Library, Mangalagangothri-574 199, Mangalore, (DK), Karnataka, ** Dr. T. Y. Mallaiah, Deputy Librarian, Mangalore University the tasks of fi nding, discovering and selecting the Library Mangalagangothri, 574 199, Mangalore, (DK),Karnataka. Reprint’s request: Dr. S.S.Kumbar, Deputy Librarian, Man- growing set of resources available in our libraries. galore University Library, Mangalagangothri-574 199, Mangalore, Similarly, the Resource discovery exploratory task- (DK), Karnataka, E-mail: [email protected] force of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Li- (Received on 14.06.10, accepted on 10.07.10) braries (2008:6) [3] also in its fi nal report stated that

© Red Flower Publication Pvt. Ltd. 290 S.S.Kumbar and T. Y. Mallaiah resource discovery with traditional library tools is At present the library has 1,78,000 documents and a frustrating and time-consuming process for many is serving the needs of 2500 users belonging to 34 researchers. courses run by 24 departments. The library docu- The advancements in the fi eld of information ments have been classifi ed using DDC 19th edition. technology changed the entire scenario of library In order to help the users in getting acquainted with services and facilities. Automation of library house- the library resources, services and facilities, it has keeping operations has changed the library cata- the practice of conducting library orientation pro- logue into a database of library holdings and helped gramme at the beginning of every academic year. To to provide the online search facility through OPACs. maintain proper order of the documents the library The networking of libraries made the catalogue as a has a practice of thorough shelf reading activity tool for remote access known as Web OPAC. With twice a year. In the present era a library working on the integrated library automation programmes used traditional lines without automation activity would for circulation of documents, the catalogue helped not succeed in meeting the user needs. Therefore an the users not only to fi nd out the documents owned automation programme was felt necessary. Library by the library but also to understand the status of a catalogue forms the backbone of library automation particular document. The developments leading to as every library transaction depends on the up to the standard formats for sharing the bibliographic date bibliographical database of its holdings. The information have helped in building the union cata- steps for the creation of catalogue database were logues, and completing the process of automation at initiated. The process has been described in the suc- a short span of time. ceeding paragraphs.

Present era has been considered to be the era of The process of creating user friendly catalogue internet. The web technology has not only had its impact on the libraries but also on the user needs. The library catalogue was in card form having the The users are more interested in interactive infor- entries being prepared using Classifi ed Catalogue mation systems rather than static or one way in- Code. Therefore many of the users were reluctant in formation providers. Therefore we are noticing the using it. To make it more users friendly and amena- improvements in library services and facilities using ble to automation the process the entire collection of web technologies. In the present paper an attempt about 42000 was re-catalogued according to AACR- has been made to describe the efforts of Mangalore II in the year 1985. This task was carried out system- University Library in developing its online public atically using the entire team of professionals work- access catalogue in order to serve its users with im- ing in the library. The principle of division of labor proved services. was adopted accordingly the professionals were in- volved in preparing the catalogue entries, the cleri- Mangalore University: A Brief Profi le cal staff were assigned the job of typing catalogue cards and the semiprofessionals were assigned the Mangalore University Library came in to existence job of checking the typographical errors and fi nally in the year 1980. Prior to this it served as the library fi ling the cards in the card cabinet. of post graduate centre of the University of Mysore. Initially the library had 40,000 documents in its col- Efforts made for the development of Catalogue lection. It served the 362 users belonging to the fi ve Database academic departments existed at that time. The year 1993 is a mile stone in the history of Mangalore Uni- After re-cataloguing the collection the next step versity Library for having an independent building. was creation of bibliographical database of the li-

Volume 5 Number 3; October - December 2011 Developing an Online Public Access Catalogue: a case study of Mangalore University Library 291 brary holdings. Before starting the actual process of within the library. The LIBSYS software was loaded database creation the entire library collection was in the WindowsNT server and the nodes were con- verifi ed physically and a process of weeding out of nected to it. Simultaneously implementing the on- the less used and unused collection was carried out line circulation service was initiated. However, the in consultation with the faculty members. Based on problem faced often was server failure due to virus the recommendations of the concerned faculty the attack, and lack of adequate trained manpower. unused books were separated from the active collec- This necessitated the purchasing of the upgraded tion. The catalogue was updated by separating the LINUX version of the software, i.e. LIBSYS 4 and entries pertaining to these documents. training the library staff. At present the library has Steps for creation of catalogue database were ini- LIBSYS 4 software. With the initial training given tiated in the year 1989 using dbaseIII+. For this pur- by the software vendors the staff members got ac- pose a data sheet was developed with fi xed length quainted with the working of the software through fi elds. About 40% of the records were created. As daily practice. The present software is having web it was not a versatile library automation software, OPAC and Web client facility. It has been installed many diffi culties were faced. Important among them on the LINUX server. Now the software is support- was diffi culty in entering data beyond the limited ing the entire library housekeeping operation with- fi eld length. Therefore, the library purchased LIB- out much diffi culty. The server is connected with 13 SYS Software during 1993-94. This software was in nodes within the library, out of these two systems DOS version, and was loaded on Netware platform. were spared mainly for OPAC search. In addition, The records created using dbaseIII+ package were a link to the OPAC was created in the Mangalore imported into LIBSYS software. It was having the fa- University Home page; this has helped the users for cility of varying fi eld length and helped in entering accessing the library database from any corner of the the maximum required information in the catalogue world. records. Hence, the work was further continued us- ing LIBSYS. Features of On-line Public Access Catalogue During this process the problem of duplicate ac- (OPAC) and user expectations cession numbers was faced for a few documents. This was resolved by consulting the accession reg- OPAC has broken the physical boundaries of the ister and making alternative arrangement by using library. Compared to card catalogue it has more ac- alphanumeric accession numbers. After entering the cess points from which any number of users can ac- catalogue data, the next step was editing and data cess at a time. It has options for carrying out simple validation by cross checking with the classifi ed part ‘author’, ‘title’, ‘subject’, ‘classifi ed’ and ‘Key word of the catalogue. During this process, it was required in title’ searches. Advance search option helps to to switch over from OPAC to cataloguing module search using ‘Boolean operators’. Further the ‘pa- again and again for correcting the typographical er- tron’ option helps the users to check how many rors traced while searching the database using clas- books are due to the library. With the help of cata- sifi ed search option in the OPAC. It was because, the logue database, generation of new additions list, software did have no provision to search the data- compilation of bibliographies, compilation of list of base in classifi ed order in the cataloguing module it- theses etc., have become easy. This has saved a lot of self for cross checking purpose. With great diffi culty time for the library staff as well as for the users. Fur- the editing work was completed. ther the catalogue database helped in implementing After creating the database a server and fi ve nodes the online circulation service. This helped the users were installed in the library for making provision for to know the status of each and every document of online access to the same through local area network the library i.e. as whether the particular document

Indian Journal of Library and Information Science 292 S.S.Kumbar and T. Y. Mallaiah is already issued out, or available at new arrivals terest are added to the library holdings. The faculty display, or sent for binding, or withdrawn, etc. This members desire to have the option for creating the has resulted in reduction in the catalogue based en- reading lists without much diffi culty while design- quiries at the library circulation desk. Chalon and ing the syllabus for various courses. In the present others (2008:1) [4] stated that the OPAC presents the scenario most of the users are using Amazon and collection of a library to its users, usually through other sites for identifying the latest documents. Such searching or browsing. It may be an extension of the users expect the same facilities in the library OPACs integrated library management system (ILS) or in- such as the display of the images of the book jackets dependent software. and fi elds for adding comments about the book and However, the investigators have come across a facility for viewing the opinions of other users ex- new phenomenon of user expectations about the li- pressed about the documents they have used. The brary catalogue during an informal discussions held users also expect to fi nd out the other titles read by with the users of online catalogue. Mainly teachers the users of a particular document. Breeding (2007) and research scholars expressed that the present [5] reported that the content of OPACs can also be OPAC does not disclose all the information con- enriched by adding a table of contents and summary tained in the online databases for which the library of the book and also visual displays. has permission to access through consortium and The library professionals involved in automation institutional subscription. Further it does not reveal activities expect the facility to download and import the details of CD-ROMs and DVDs that the library the records from the OPACs directly to their data- has in its collection. They expressed that the cata- bases in order to achieve speed accuracy, uniformity logue should be effi cient enough to retrieve all the in the catalogue entries and also to save the time and documents available on a particular query irrespec- energy while creating an entry in their system for tive of their physical form and place of availability. similar documents held by other libraries. This clearly shows that the users are expecting the Looking at the changing pattern of user expec- library catalogue to function like internet search en- tations it is observed that the libraries in India are gine for retrieving the pertinent information. Further slow in augmenting the advanced technologies in they desire to have results displayed as per their or- designing their catalogues according to the needs of der of preference, such as latest fi rst and expect the the users compared to the advanced countries. This options for search within results. They also expect to is the real challenge before us in the present era. provide them the online reservation facility for those documents that are already issued out to some one CONCLUSION else. This necessitates the joint efforts of library staff and software engineers in improving the situation to Creation of catalogue database is the important meet the user expectations. The study clearly shows task in the process of library automation. Further it the changing pattern of user expectations about the is very much essential to maintain regular and prop- library catalogue and library services. Therefore, it er data backup otherwise the entire efforts will be is suggested to include the bibliographical details of futile incase of computer hardware problems occur all the existing CD-ROMs, DVDs and other electron- due to lightning and other such causes. At present ic sources of information in its on-line public access Mangalore University Library has maintained the catalogue; prepare an index of all the journal articles conventional card catalogue parallel to the OPAC. available in the library collection; create an institu- And the staff members have been trained to take tional repository and provide proper hyperlinks in care of regular updation of the database and main- the on-line catalogue. Further the users are expect- taining the regular backup. The result of the study ing the e-mail alerts as and when the titles of their in- would, therefore, help not only to strengthen the li-

Volume 5 Number 3; October - December 2011 Developing an Online Public Access Catalogue: a case study of Mangalore University Library 293 brary catalogue on the basis of the user needs and 3. Cutter C A. Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue. 4th preferences but also act as a guide to proceed in the Rewritten ed.. London, The library Association. right direction in future. It is hoped that the present 1953. study would also help the librarians in planning for the creation of library database. 4. University of California Bibliography Services Task Force (2005). ‘Rethinking how we provide REFERENCES bibliographical services for the University of California.’ California, University of California 1. Breeding M. Next generation library catalogues. 2005; 1. Library Technology Reports 2007; 43 (4). 5. University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Re- 2. Chalon Patrice X. and others. OPAC 2.0: Op- source discovery exploratory taskforce fi nal re- portunities, Development and Analysis. In: 11th port, Wisconsin - Madison , University of Wis- European Conference of Medical and Health Li- consin - Madison 2008. braries. Helsinki, Finland 2008; 1.

Indian Journal of Library and Information Science