HISTORICAL

PERSPECTIVE,
NEED AND
PURPOSE
Dr. Projes Roy
1960s: Library broadcasting system
1960s: IMB 357 computer
1960s: Computerized circulation system
• A computerized
circulation system was
implemented,
1970s: Telephone hotline

It provided
"immediate
reference, referral
and photo-copy
service when the
resources of the
local public
libraries are unable
to meet the needs
of their patrons."
1970s: Bibliographic Retrieval System
1970s: End of the door guards
• The library's 'door
guards' were
replaced by an
electronic scanner.
1980s: OCLC terminal
1980s:
Barcoding
books
1980s: Card catalogue ends
1980s: First online catalogue
1980s: Remote access to online catalog
1990s
2000s
OVERVIEW OF LIBRARY
HOUSEKEEPING
OPERATIONS
Acquisition Catalogue Circulation
• Cataloguing • Membership
• Orders
• Import/Export • Transaction
• Accessioning • User Services • ILL
• Payment • Reports • Maintenance
Serial Control
• Suggestions
• Subscription
• Payment
• Check in
• Commercial Binding/In
House Binding

OPAC
 Acquisition

Select:
Order:
Receive:
Accession:
 Processing
• Classify:
• Catalogue:
• Label
✓ Spine label:
✓ Ownership slip/mark
✓ Date slip:
✓ Book pocket
✓ Book card
✓ Barcode Lebel
✓ EM Tag
✓ RFID Sticker
✓ NFC Sticker
• Shelve:
Circulation

• Barcode
• EM Tag
• RFID
• NFC
Serials Control

• Through local vendors/subscription agents

• Through foreign vendors/subscription agents
• Direct from the publishers
• As gift or Complementary
• Through membership
• In exchange.
fundamental tasks of any serials control
system
• 1) Selection of serials
• 2) Selection of subscription mode
• 3) Formulation of terms of procurement
• 4) Selection of vendors
• 5) Placing supply orders
• 6) Making advance payment
• 7) Receiving and registration of serials issues in a kardex system.
• 8) Sending reminders for issues not received.
• 9) Making adjustments in advance payments for missing issues
• 10) Preparation of lists of subscribed journals, new arrivals and serials holdings for
• consultation by users
• 11) Binding
Maintenance

• Shelf Rectification : Shelving misplaced documents in

proper locations
• Bind : Preserving library resources for posterior and present
use
• Replace : Replacing a lost document by the library
• Discard/Withdrawn : Weeding out out-dated, torn and
unserviceable documents from the library.
Table 1. The creation of library catalogs 1876–1997. A conspectus of
tools and critiques in the historical search for best practice.17
• 1876 Cutter’s Rules for a Printed Dictionary Catalogue, 1st ed.
• 1904 Cutter’s Rules for a Dictionary Catalog, 4th ed.
• 1908 Catalog Rules: Author and Title Entries. (The Anglo-American
Cataloging Code)
• 1941 Preliminary second edition by the ALA of the 1908 rules
• 1941 A.D. Osborn, “The Crisis in Cataloging”18
• 1942 ALA Rules for Filing Catalog Cards
• 1948 Rules for Descriptive Cataloging in the Library of Congress
• 1949 ALA Cataloging Rules for Author and Title Entries
• 1953 Seymour Lubetzky, Cataloging Rules and Principles: A Critique of the
ALA Rules19
• 1956 Filing Rules for the Dictionary Catalogs in the Library of Congress
• 1961 International Conference on Cataloging Principles, Paris
• 1965 Draft of Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) format
• 1967 Anglo American Cataloging Rules (AACR)
• 1968 MARC II format
• 1969 International Meeting of Cataloging Experts, Copenhagen
• 1971 International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD)
• 1974 First meeting of Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR (JSC)
• 1978 Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed. (AACR 2)
• 1980 Library of Congress Filing Rules
• 1988 Anglo American Cataloging Rules, 2nd edition revised (AACR2 R)
• 1997 International conference on the principles and future of AACR,
Toronto
• 1998 AACR2 e (CD-ROM under constant revision by Joint Steering
Committee)20
Library Modernisation and
Automation Timeline
• 1963: First photocopier
The first photocopier was installed at Kresge Library. Copies
cost 10 cents a page, but the price was predicted to
decrease.
• 1964: Library broadcasting system
• Kresge Library introduced a Library Broadcasting System,
playing a variety of material including "Bach, Baez, and
the Gemini Space Shot", which students could listen to
using portable transistor headsets.
40 Years of Technology in Libraries:
Start-up and Sharing of Experience - 1963-1970
✓ In the 1960s the Committee heard automation reports from a variety of countries: Canada, Germany, Sweden, UK,
USA, and USSR. These and other papers described automation activity for many library processes: acquisitions, serials
control, circulation, catalogue card production, book catalogue production, accession lists, KWIC-indexing and even
union catalogues.

✓ It should be noted that librarians in 1963 did not yet have many of the automation options that are commonplace in
2003. Integrated circuits, chips, networks, even floppy discs were still a few years away. The cathode ray tube was
invented but not yet deployed. The personal computer would not debut for 17 more years. And the first MARC Pilot
Program at the Library of Congress would not start until the following year.

✓ 1964 IBM introduced the 360 series, the first “family” of computers to be released and the robust machine that
propelled computing out of the universities and into the mainstream. Computing machines at that time were large
mainframes using transistor technology and input was largely via punched cards. In this technical setting the newly
formed Committee on Mechanization held an organizational session at the 1964 IFLA Council meeting in Rome.

✓ The Committee on Mechanization was formally founded in 1965 at the IFLA meeting in Helsinki. Gunther Pflug from
the University Library Bochum (Germany) became the first official chair of the Committee, and Walter Lingenberg
(Berlin) the Secretary. They had been active in getting the Committee started and led it through the early years.
• Bibliographic Formats, Standards, and Data Exchange -
1970-1975

✓ By 1970, the Committee had become very active as automation interest in the community increased.
The Committee turned from the general discussions and case-history reports of the 1960s to more
sophisticated and technical subjects. Areas under investigation in the early 1970s were: data formats
and the new MARC II format, the emerging ISSN and possible “World Serials Data System”, new
organizational structures for libraries resulting from the mechanization programs, user reactions to
automation, and handling of the large data banks that were being created.

✓ In 1971 a significant conference of experts was held in Berlin to discuss MARC formats and data
exchange, key topics of this period.
✓Collaboration with other groups working on automation
and standards for automation was initiated in the early
1970s. UNISIST and FID had interests in common with the
Committee and IFLA began a special relationship with ISO
TC 46, Automation in Documentation.
✓1972: The Committee on Mechanization also began to
work more closely with the Committee on Cataloging,
including the setting up of joint working groups on (1)
Content Designators, and (2) Filing. Both of these groups
were also joint with ISO TC46. The Working Group on
Content Designators eventually developed the first draft
of the UNIMARC format.
• Reorganization and the Section on Information Technology
- Late 1970s
✓In the late 1970s, IFLA had a major reorganization and
adopted new Statutes (1976) and Rules of
✓Procedure (1979). Under the old statutes, only type-of-
library groups could be IFLA Sections

✓Thus the Committee on Mechanization became the

Section on Mechanization, and, in 1979, the Section on
Information Technology (IT), the name it has today. While
the collaborations and working groups organized before
1975 continued their work, the presentation of programs
was interrupted by the reorganization.
• Networking and New Technologies - Micros, Optical Discs,
CDROMs - 1979-1987
✓Networking became a focus in the early 1980s as many
countries had developed or were developing national
networks by that time
✓This focus of the Section led to the creation in 1985 of a
new core program at the National Library of Canada,
initially called Transborder Data Flow (but eventually
changed to Universal Dataflow and Telecommunications
(UDT))
✓CDROMs were investigated as carriers for resources and
for library catalogues. A study of optical and videodisc
technology was commissioned.
• Networks, Protocols, Electronic Document Delivery, and OPACS
- 1987-1992
✓Networking in a broader sense became an interest in the late
1980s.
✓Open System Interconnection protocols and other protocols
for linking dissimilar computer systems were examined by the
Section through seminars, open sessions, and projects
✓The public catalog also continued to be a concern. With the
development and rapid proliferation of microcomputer
terminals the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) became
the goal for many libraries.
✓The Graphical User Interface (GUI) project, viewed as an aid
for standardization of OPAC interfaces, was also initiated in the
early 1990s.
• Connectivity - Internet, Web, Protocols - and Electronic Publications -
1993-1997
✓In the 1990s the Internet became the defining technology and especially
its Web application. This development opened up vast new areas for
librarians to explore and exploit.
✓Internet/Web workshops sponsored by IT and UDT in 1994, 1995, and 1996
were well received and valuable for conference attendees.
✓The Section also sponsored workshops and open sessions on protocols
(interlibrary loan, information retrieval (Z39.50), email) and an important
early program in 1995 on electronic publishing.
✓In 1993, the Section held another conference on multiple script and
language issues – 10 years after the first IT conference on the topic in
Japan and the same year as the alignment of the new Unicode with the
ISO Universal Character Set
✓The Section also supported new Discussion Groups on Metadata, Unicode,
and Digital Libraries.
✓From Analogue to Digital Library (1990 to date)
New Technologies – 1997-2001
• 1999
Web-OPACs began appearing in almost all automated libraries.
Conversion and digitisation of print contents into electronic
format started in a big way; Full text access to information
resources over Internet started against IP authentication.
Integrated access interface emerged to act as one-stop access
interface; IFLA introduced FRBR as a conceptual data model for
bibliographical databases.
• 2000- Eprint archives and digital libraries. RFID are being
developed in a big way. Smart card based user access to
online library services have come into use.
2003- till date

• Consortia
• E-Book
• EM Tag
• RFID
• NFC
• Bluetooth
Aspects of Digital Libraries - 1998-
2002
• In the last few years the Internet, the Web, computer
languages, and tools have matured to enable creation of
a rapidly increasing number of digital resources that need
to be controlled, served, and preserved by libraries.
• variety of aspects of the digital environment such as
global and local digital projects, technical issues, cross-
domain interchange, e-reference, and subject gateways
• The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) protocols for harvesting
bibliographic data was reviewed in 2001 in Boston.