What Would be the Future of the Integrated Library Systems?

Since the advent of Integrated Library Systems (ILSs) in 1970s, they have gone from being innovative to stagnant. In recent years, the rapid advancement of web technologies and the exponential growth of electronic resources and digital contents have increasingly exposed the weakness of traditional ILSs. The lack of flexibility, interoperability, and efficiency makes the ILSs hardly meet the needs of both internal and external library users. Meanwhile Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Drupal and open source ILSs have gotten much attention due to their technological and economic advantages, and cloud computing has allowed libraries to focus on bigger pictures. Facing the unprecedented challenges, major ILS vendors are pressed to develop the next generation ILS; nonetheless, the concrete ideas of the future ILSs are still being investigated. The paper will reference the developmental history of ILSs to discuss the limitations of the current ILSs, the unavoidable transformation these systems are facing, and some aspects or features that the next-generation ILSs are expected to contain

Open Source Software for Integrated Library System : Relative Appropriatness in the Indian Context

Libraries in all fields of human activity are involved in collection, preservation, management, and effective distribution of information that determines the quality of development in concerned sectors including that of higher education and research. Now information is flooding and along with that the recorded information to be managed; which necessitates automation of libraries to make the information stored in their collections useful and retrievable. Hitherto the cost of commercial packages for automation has prevented millions of libraries from using those tools. The recent emergence of Open Source Software has drastically reduced the cost of automation as well provided tools for new and innovative information services. The present research work focuses on comparative study of library automation packages with stress to appropriateness of Open Source Integrated Library Systems (OSILS) for countries like India. Study is based on a survey among library professionals from India using commercial and OSILS packages. The sample users belong to 601 libraries covering university, college, school, special and research libraries using any one of the integrated library systems. Packages covered is limited to the software /versions used in India. The survey found that features users of library automation packages consider are cost effectiveness, technical infrastructure, staff skills, software functionality and the availability of support, documentation and community. Study revealed that OSILS provides technological freedom and so is changing the landscape of library automation. Survey found Koha to be most popular in India. Suggests solutions to improve the situation. Few recommendations are provided to help libraries to choose suitable OSILS by understanding their advantages. Opines that being an attractive alternative to costly commercial package for any type of libraries OSILS, which is free to experiment and easy to use and customize for local requirements needs to be promoted in Indian libraries