Libraries worldwide are increasingly turning to automation to effectively utilize and manage their information and knowledge resources. Library Automation: Design, Principles and Practice provides a road map to libraries contemplating partial or complete automation of their systems. With a brief historical perspective of the evolution of library automation systems, this book provides an extensive analysis of each single methodology that underpins the complex process of library automation. The book handles the automation of acquisition, cataloguing, circulation control, and serials in depth, dedicating a chapter each on file and data structures, and how to optimize critical single aspects of these individual key systems. An entire chapter is devoted to the nature and characteristics of emerging web-based library automation systems. This book is targeted at library science students and teachers in developing countries. It should also serve as a useful guide for librarians and software professionals interested in the area of library automation. The base chapters of the book explain: Why a subsystem is sought to be automated and the prerequisites to automation of a subsystem; What functionalities are considered desirable in different subsystems; How the functionalities are in fact implemented in one or more automation systems; and finally, The Interrelationship of each subsystem with other subsystems in an integrated system. The data structures chapters explore the innards of library automation systems, with each culminating in defining a database for an integrated library automation system. An application CD accompanies the book and contains: sample applications; presentations for use by teachers; applications to illustrate the data structures discussed in the book; links to and full text resources on the Web; and a description of a web-based library automation system developed in India.
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