Chapter Z. Recent Trends In

CHAPTER Z Recent Trends in IOD Z.1 INTRODUCTION With the ushering in of digital era and emergence of Internet, there have been several new developments that have made a great impact on information organization and dissemination activities. Such developments have been briefly described in the following sections. Z.2 E-INFORMATION SERVICE The increasing application of electronic or digital technology in rendering information services in recent decades has given rise to the concept of electronic or digital information services. Basically all library services are information services. Even circulation of documents is also an information service in the sense that documents bear information and through circulation a document bearing information pertinent to the user concerned is supplied to him or her. This may, at the best, be called indirect information service. However, reference service and documentation service can be called direct information services. In the digital era, some more services have come into vogue, such as Internet searching service or database searching service, which are in fact varieties of documentation service/ information service. It may be pointed out that e-information service (EIS) can be provided only when the information are available in digital format. That is why EIS is defined as “one where maximum use is made of electronically held information” [1]. There are two aspects of electronic information services, viz., availability of information in electronic format and provision of service through electronic medium. EIS can also be given on the basis of information sources available in print form, but that will involve a lot of efforts and costs making the proposition unreal- istic. Obviously, a fully digital library will only be in a position to provide totally electronic information services. Elements of Information Organization and Dissemination © 2017 Amitabha Chatterjee. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102025-8.00026-0 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 527 528 Elements of Information Organization and Dissemination Z.2.1 Modes of EIS EIS can be organized locally through intranet set up for the purpose and mounting the locally compiled digital information sources and/or those available on CD onto the server or through the Internet/World Wide Web, especially when the users are located remotely. Both the modes can also be used simultaneously for providing the service. Z.2.2 Types of EIS Though any of the traditional information services may be converted into EIS, normally EIS involves: ● Providing access to e-books, e-journals, and other electronic information products; ● Providing access to bibliographic databases, including abstracting services; ● Providing access to full-text databases (with hyperlink facilities); ● Providing e-alerting service (about availability of required information/document); ● Providing Internet searching (institutional and government websites, bulletin boards, etc.) service. EIS may also include conditional and limited downloading facilities. The Internet-based EISs have been discussed in a subsequent section. Z.2.3 Characteristics of EIS The main characteristics of EIS are: ● The services are mainly generated on the basis of digital information resources that are available online or offline; ● The services are provided in digital medium, either offline or online; ● The services may be obtained by the users directly sitting at home; ● The services may be available in the form of access only or access and limited downloading; and ● Some services may be available commercially to the users, without the intervention of any library/information center. Z.2.4 Organization of EIS The following steps may be followed while organizing any EIS [2]: ● Initiation: Before planning any EIS in a library, some preliminary tasks have to be undertaken so as to assess the availability of information Recent Trends in IOD 529 and existence/nonexistence of the users’ need for the proposed service. These tasks are: ● Establishing goals and objectives: Starting of EIS improves the over- all performance of the library and helps in achieving the goals and objectives of the library itself. The specific goals of EIS are [3]: expansion of personalized information service to the users; improvement of quality of research, decision-making, etc., undertaken by the users; broadening the scope of the library resources; integrating the new service with the existing information services rendered by the library; increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the information retrieval process; and acquainting the users with electronic services to enhance lifelong information gathering skills. ● Information audit: Information audit finds out what information exist and where in an organization, what information are needed, and the information flows and gaps. ● Assessment of users’ needs: Assessment of users’ needs may be undertaken as a part of information audit itself. “The exercise should provide a clear understanding on the ways that users currently access information, and the types of information that they use” and should reveal “what kind of information is needed, who needs it, and the range of topic that must be covered” [1]. (See Chapter-C) ● Planning and Preparation for EIS: Once information audit and assessment of users’ needs are complete, planning of different aspects of the intended service needs to be undertaken and some preparatory tasks will have to be accomplished. ● Planning: This will involve deciding the details of product or service to be started; the space required for organizing and providing the service; the financial requirements; and the staff requirement, including the skills to be possessed by them. It will also involve preparation of a proposal for starting the new service and obtaining approval for the same and setting up a timetable for implementation of the proposal. ● Preparation: This will involve securing necessary funds, building of basic infrastructure, building of adequate information resource base, building of technological capability, recruitment/training of staff, and training of users. ● Provision of EIS: Finally for introducing the EIS, the required information resource/product has to be created and/or mounted on the Internet/ Intranet; a trial run has to be organized to assess its effectiveness and the service has to be introduced after necessary modifications, if required. 530 Elements of Information Organization and Dissemination ● Marketing of EIS: Though an EIS is started only after assessing the needs of the existing users, the service may be helpful to many potential users and even nonusers. The service should be properly marketed among all types of users and even non-users through usual marketing channels. ● Evaluation, monitoring, and measuring of EIS: There is need to constantly assess, evaluate, and monitor the EIS after it is started. Many new and competing services and products are constantly arriving on the scene. It is necessary to consider them for their potential impact on the EIS being run by a library. Each part of the service should be examined in detail and evaluated. ● Continuation/discontinuation/replacement of EIS: The evaluation of the utility of the service will enable the library to decide if the service should be continued or discontinued; if it should be continued whether it should be in the same format or in a changed format. If the evaluation gives negative results the service may be discontinued or replaced by a new service. In that case the whole process of creating the service may have to be repeated. Z.3 INTERNET/WEB-BASED INFORMATION SERVICE Advent of Internet, which is also known as information superhighway, has been a revolutionary development in the field of information dissemination. The Internet is a global network of computer networks utiliz- ing a suite of protocols called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol) that supports interconnection of a number of different computer networks. The Internet covers large, international Wide Area Networks (WANs) as well as smaller Local Area Networks (LANs) and individual computers connected to the Internet worldwide. The Internet supports communication and sharing of data and offers vast amount of information through a variety of services and tools [4]. Internet is not only a great source of information, but also a very effective and efficient medium for speedy dissemination of information. Through Internet, it has been possible to replace the concept of “fixed-time-fixed-place” information service to “anytime anywhere” information service. As a source of information, Internet hosts a large number of websites, bogs, online public access catalogs (OPACs) and other databases, digital libraries, and even pri- mary e-information sources, such as e-books and e-journals. These sources have been described in Chapter-B. Recent Trends in IOD 531 Z.3.1 Facilitating Tools Internet has several tools and services that can facilitate rendering of online information services to the users remotely. The major Internet tools and services that can help in this regard are: ● Email: Email or electronic mail is a method of exchanging digital messages from one person to another or more recipients. This is often used by libraries and information centers to provide current awareness service (CAS) and selective dissemination of information (SDI). ● Telnet: The Terminal Emulation protocol or Telnet allows one computer to access another computer

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