Among the entries or access points assigned to a catalog record, one is designated as the main entry. The other access points are called added entries. The record that bears the main entry represents a complete catalog record of the item and is presented in the form by which the item is to be uniformly identified and cited.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
In recent year, the concept of main entry has been challenged. It is questioned whether, in a multiple-entry file, the main entry has any real significance. Some feel that since the user can retrieve the catalog record through any of the entries, they have equal value.
Nonetheless, in AACR-2, the concept of main entry is still maintained as being valid at least under the following circumstances:
1. In making a single entry listing.
2. In making a single citation for a work (as required for entries for related works and for some subject entries).
3. In assigning uniform titles and in promoting the standardization of bibliographic citation.
Chapter 21 of AACR-2 is devoted to the choice of access points and the designation of the main entry.
In a catalogue, individual bibliographic entries are organized into a coherent file. Two predominant methods of organizing the entries are the systematic or classified arrangement and the alphabetical arrangementImage may be NSFW. Clik here to view..
In a classified catalogue, the entries are arranged according to a certain system of classification, resulting in subject collocation. This is the older form of catalog arrangement. This form of catalog as a public tool has become all but extinct in American libraries. However, as a working tool for catalogers, this form is still extant in the shelf list usually located in the cataloging department.
In an alphabetical, or dictionary catalogue, entries are organized in alphabetical sequence without regard to subject relationship. This form was introduced in the latter part of the nineteenth century and has since become the predominant form of catalog arrangement in American libraries.
A set of parallel lines of varied thicknesses and space on products sold in supermarkets. The lines represent alphanumerical characters which can be recognized and interpreted by an optical scanner. The code represented by bars is known as Universal Product Code.
It is specially designed label consisting of closely spaced lines of varying widths which is used to encode a numeric identifier. A typical bar code label measures 1.5 to 2 inches in width and 0.6 to 0.75 inches in height.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
On the other hand, State University, New York Upstate Medical Center adopted this system that counted of identification card, plastic book card, and IBM Transmission Card, employing addressograph class 9500 optical code reader, IBM 1440 computer and IBM collator. The system uses one borrower card with different colors for students, faculty and staff. Four lines of data are recorded on each card. A ten-digit number is empossed on the top of the card in numeric and bar code form, which is machine readable, by optical character reader identifying the borrower by category, school, year of graduation or department. Most of the bar codes formats employ a 14 to 16 digit number. Barcode labels which may be affixed to documents or other objects are read by specially designed scanners that interpret the number they represent and transmit them to a computer. Barcode scanner is an optical device used to decode the information present on any document or object.
Bibliography is a systematic description and history of books, their authorship, publication, editions (Oxford English Dictionary). It is a list of books of a particular author, printer or country, or those dealing with any particular theme, i.e. the literature of a subject. Bibliography is the study of books as material objects, irrespective of their contents. A bibliography may include a detailed description of the books themselves and in this sense the bibliographer requires a knowledge not only of the history of typography but also of book-binding and paper makiImage may be NSFW. Clik here to view.ng. A bibliography may be an author bibliography, descriptive bibliography, textual bibliography, analytical bibliography, critical bibliography and bibliography of bibliographies.
A bibliography covers title pages, including ornaments and borders, imprints, colophons implicits and explicits, binding and casting preliminaries, imprimaturs, advertisements, texts and collation, prefaces, dedications, etc.
Collation paragraph has full standard description, short, medium and full standard descriptions are accepted as the normal types of entry.
Bibliographies further cover maps, illustrations, songs and gramophone records and thematic catalogue.
গত ৩০ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৬ রোজ শুক্রবার ইনফরমেশন সায়েন্স এন্ড লাইব্রেরী ম্যানেজমেন্ট বিভাগ, রাজশাহী বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে এক উৎসবমূখর পImage may be NSFW. Clik here to view.রিবেশে একুশ শতকের প্রেক্ষাপটে রেফারেন্স ও তথ্যসেবা বইয়ের মোড়ক উন্মোচন করা হয়। মোডক উন্মোচন অনুষ্ঠানে প্রধান অতিথি হিসেবে উপস্থিত ছিলেন ড. মো: ফয়জার রহমান, ডীন, সামাজিক বিজ্ঞান অনুষদ, রাজশাহী বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়। বিশেষ অতিথি হিসেবে উপস্থিত ছিলেন অধ্যাপক মুহাম্মদ মেজবাহ্-উল-ইসলাম, (পিএইচডি), সম্মানিত চেয়ারম্যান, তথ্য বিজ্ঞান ও গ্র্রন্থাগার ব্যাবস্থাপনা বিভাগ, ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় এবং অনুষ্ঠানটির সভাপতিত্ব করেন ড. পার্থ বিপ্লব রায়, সম্মানিত চেয়ারম্যান, ইনফরমেশন সায়েন্স এন্ড লাইব্রেরী ম্যানেজমেন্ট বিভাগ, রাজশাহী বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়।
বইটির লেখক:
ড. কাজী মোস্তাক গাউসুল হক,
সহযোগী অধ্যাপক, তথ্য বিজ্ঞান ও গ্র্রন্থাগার ব্যাবস্থাপনা বিভাগ, ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়
আধুনিক গ্র্রন্থাগার ও তথ্য প্র্রতিষ্ঠানে রেফারেন্স ও তথ্যসেবার ক্রমবর্ধমান প্রয়োজনের কথা মাথায় রেখে রচিত হয়েছে এই বই। প্রথাগত সেবার পাশাপাশি প্রযুক্তভিত্তিক রেফারেন্স ও তথ্যসেবার নানা প্রসঙ্গ স্থান পেয়েছে এতে। ফলে রেফারেন্স ও তথ্য সেবার উজ্জল অতীতের সাথে সম্ভাবনাময় ভবিষ্যতের এক ধরনের যোগসূত্র রচিত হয়েছে এই গ্র্রন্থে।
বইটিতে মোট ২১ টি অধ্যায় অন্তর্ভুক্ত করা হয়েছে, যা তথ্য বি..ন ও গ্র্রন্থাগার ব্যাবস্থাপনা বিভাগের ছাত্র-ছাত্রীদের একাডেমিক পড়াশুনার ক্ষেত্রে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ ভূমিকা পালন করবে। বইাটি রেগুলার ব্যাচের ছাত্র-ছাত্রীদের পাশাপাশি লাইব্রেরী সায়েন্সে ডিপ্লোমা এবং ইভিনিং মাস্টার্সের ছাত্র-ছাত্রীদেরও কাজে আসবে।
বইটির বিষয়সূচি:
রেফারেন্স সেবার উৎপত্তি ও বিবর্তন
রেফারেন্স সেবা: উদ্দেশ্য, প্রকৃতি ও কর্মকান্ড
রেফারেন্স সেবার আধুনিক ধরন ও তথ্যসেবা
তথ্য সংগঠন
রেফারেন্স সাক্ষাৎকার
নির্দেশনা
রেফারেন্স কর্মীদের প্র্রশিক্ষণ ও শিখন
রেফারেন্স সেবার মূল্যায়ন
তথ্য উৎস
রেফারেন্স উৎস নির্বাচন, ব্যাবস্থাপনা ও মূল্যায়ন
অভিধান
বিশ্বকোষ
নির্দেশিকা
পঞ্জিকা, বর্ষপঞ্জি, পুস্তিকা ও নির্দেশনা
জীবনীমূলক উৎস
ভৌগোলিক উৎস
নির্ঘন্ট ও সংক্ষিপ্তসার
গ্রন্থপঞ্জীগত উৎস
রেফারেন্সিং পদ্ধতি ও রেফারেন্স ব্যাবস্থাপনা
ইলেকট্রনিক তথ্যসম্পদ
ডিজিটাল রেফারেন্স সেবা
বইটির প্রাপ্তিস্থান:
ইনফরমেশন সায়েন্স এন্ড লাইব্রেরী ম্যানেজমেন্ট বিভাগ, রাজশাহী বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়। এবং
ইনফরমেশন সায়েন্স এন্ড লাইব্রেরী ম্যানেজমেন্ট বিভাগ, ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়।
বইটির মূল্য:
৪০০ টাকা (বিভাগীয় শিক্ষার্থীদের জন্য বিশেষ মূল্য – ২৫০ টাকা)
রাজশাহী বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের ইনফরমেশন সায়েন্স এন্ড লাইব্রেরী ম্যানেজমেন্ট বিভাগের সকল প্রাক্তন ছাত্র/ছাত্রীদের দৃষ্টি আকর্ষণ করছি, এপ্রিলের শেষ সপ্তাহ ২০১৭ তে আমাদের বিভাগ কর্তৃক “দুই যুগপূর্তি ও ১ম এলামনাই সম্মিলন” -২০১৭ আয়োজনের সিদ্ধান্ত হয়েছে। বিভাগের এই মিলনমেলায় অংশ নিতে চাইলে আজই রেজিষ্ট্রেশন করুন এবং আপনার সহপাঠিদেরও জানিয়ে দিন, তাদের অংশগ্রহন নিশ্চিত করুন।
অনুুষ্ঠানের বিস্তারিত:
দুই যুগপূর্তি ও ১ম এলামনাই সম্মিলন অনুুষ্ঠানের তারিখ: এপ্রিলের শেষ সপ্তাহ
দুই যুগপূর্তি ও ১ম এলামনাই সম্মিলন অনুুষ্ঠানে যোগদানের জন্য নিবন্ধনের শেষ তারিখ: ৩০.০৩.২০১৭
রেজিস্ট্র্রশান ফি:
প্রাক্তন ছ্ত্র-ছাত্রীদের অনশগ্রহণ ফি (প্রতিজন): ২২০০ টাকা
এলামনাই সদস্য ফি (প্রতিজন): ৩০০ টাকা
প্রাক্তন ছাত্র-ছাত্রীর স্বামী/স্ত্রী/সন্তানদের (০৭ বছর বা তদুর্ধ্বে) অংশগ্রহণ ফি (প্রতি জন): ১৫০০ টাকা
The IFLA Environmental Sustainability and Libraries Special Interest Group is on a mission. It hopes to address the effects of climate change on libraries, share the application of environmental practices, and increase environmental awareness among librarians.
IFLA’s Environmental Sustainability and Libraries Special Interest Group (ENSULIB) is pleased to announce the winner of the IFLA Green Library Award 2017.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Objectives of the IFLA Green Library Award:
To reward the best Green Library submission that communicates the library’s commitment to environmental sustainability
To create awareness of libraries’ social responsibility and leadership in environmental education.
Libraries of all types are encouraged to participate
To support the worldwide Green Library movement,
concerned with environmentally sustainable buildings environmentally sustainable information resources and programming.
conservation of resources and energy.
4. To promote the development of Green Libraries initiatives locally and world wide
5. To encourage Green Libraries to actively present their activities to an international audience.
Submission type allow:
Essay
Video
Poster
Article
Set of Slides
Others….,
Submission Language allow:
Arabic,
Chinese
English
German
French
Spanish
Submission deadline:
Applications must be submitted before 30 April 2017 to the following address.
Koha is a full-featured Integrated Library System(ILS). there is no cost for the license, you have the freedom to modify the product to adapt it to your needs, etc. Developed initially in New Zealand by KImage may be NSFW. Clik here to view.atipo Communications with Horowhenua Library Trust. It is currently maintained by a dedicated team of software providers and library technology staff from around the globe. That by adopting it, the customer becomes “joint owner ” of the product. In particular, the customer can freely install new versions or not, and can take part in new developments by financing them or by carrying them out them self.
Koha download for your PC:
You can download Koha live DVD by click following link. This DVD’s are uploaded to Google drive, and you are allowed there a free access. This DVD did not need any internet connections on installation. All of the components are already installed on DVD.
Live Mode User Name: koha_library
Live Mode Password: koha123
Koha Live DVD 32 bit: Download (Available Very Soon)
The Royal Melbourn Institute of Technology (Australia), usually known as RMIT, is a public research university based in Melbourn, Australia. It’s a global university-recognized for leadership and innovation in technology, design, and enterprise. RMIT is one of the tops ratted tertiary institutions in Australia for excellence in professional and vocational education and applied research. Its main campus is situated on124 La Trobe St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Australia Awards Scholarship (AAS) for RMIT:
RMIT University (Australia) is inviting applications from eligible international students from worldwide for Australia Award Scholarship 2020-2021. Australia Awards are prestigious international scholarships and fellowships funded by the Australian Government offering the next generation of global leaders an opportunity to undertake study, research, and professional development. Fully Funded Australia Award Scholarship Program 2020-2021 is NOW Available for International Students from different parts of the world for Undergraduate, Master, and Ph.D. (Doctoral) Degree Programs.
Types of Scholarship: Fully-Funded Scholarships
Participating Countries for RMIT Scholarship:
Lists of the countries that are eligible for Australia Awards Scholarships with application closing dates.
Countries
Deadlines
Countries
Deadlines
Asia:
Bangladesh
Bhutan
Cambodia
India
Indonesia
Laos
Maldives
Mongolia
Myanmar
Nepal
Pakistan
Philippines
Sri Lanka
Timor-Leste
Vietnam
Opening Date: 1 February 2020
Closing Date: 30 April 2020
Pacific:
Federated States of Micronesia
Fiji
Kiribati
Marshall Islands
Nauru
Papua New Guinea
Republic of Palau
Samoa
Solomon Islands
Tonga
Tuvalu
Vanuatu
Wallis and Futuna
Opening Date: 1 February 2020
Closing Date: 30 April 2020
For Vanuatu, Closing date is 31 March 2020
Africa:
Botswana
Ghana
Kenya
Madagascar
Malawi
Mauritius
Mozambique
Nigeria
South Africa
Tanzania
Zambia
Opening Date: 1 October 2019
Closing Date: 6 December 2019
Middle East:
Palestinian Territories
Opening Date: 1 October 2019
Closing Date: 6 December 2019
Scholarship Benefits:
Australia Awards Scholarships are offered for the minimum period necessary for the individual to complete the academic program specified by the Australian higher education institution, including any preparatory training.
The following benefits generally apply:
full tuition fees
return air travel–payment of a single return, economy class airfare to and from Australia, via the most direct route
establishment allowance–a once only payment as a contribution towards accommodation expenses, textbooks, study materials
Contribution to Living Expenses (CLE) – a fortnightly contribution to basic living expenses paid at a rate determined by the department.
Introductory Academic Program (IAP)–a compulsory program prior to the commencement of formal academic studies covering information on living and studying in Australia
Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC) for the duration of the award (for award holder only)–provided to cover the scholar’s basic medical costs (with the exception of pre-existing conditions)
Pre-course English (PCE) fees–if deemed necessary PCE may be available for students for in-country and/or in-Australia training
supplementary academic support may be available to ensure a scholar’s academic success or enhance their academic experience
fieldwork (for research awards and Masters by coursework which has a research component where fieldwork is compulsory) may be available for eligible research students for one return economy class airfare via the most direct route to their country of citizenship or within Australia.
Award conditions
Applicants who want to accept an Australia Awards Scholarship will need to sign a contract with the Commonwealth of Australia declaring that they will comply with the conditions of the scholarship.
Scholars are required to leave Australia for a minimum of two years after completing their scholarship. Failure to do so will result in the scholar incurring a debt for the total accrued cost of their scholarship.
Refer to the scholarship eligibility criteria and your country’s priority areas of study.
From the priority areas of study, choose the RMIT program you would like to study.
Complete your scholarship application.
If you are successful in the scholarship, you will be notified by the Australia Awards office in your country. The Australia Awards office will then apply on your behalf so you need not apply directly to us. Once you have accepted your scholarship, your Student Contact Officer will be in touch with you shortly to ensure your transition to RMIT is as smooth as possible
Information is considered as a vital resource for communication or dissemination of knowledge of one individual to another from the very early stage of human civilization. It is the basis of education and is an essential ingredient for new ideas. For effective use of information, it is necessary that it should be shared. The tremendous information revolution and proliferation have brought about drastic changes to the function and services in all type of libraries in India during last two decades. Information exchange or sharing of information takes mode of cooperation. The mode of cooperation has gone under a transformation with infusion of new information technology from print based environment to digital environment. Cooperation among institutions for sharing their library resources is being practiced for decades. The study of Nagarjuna (2005) explained that cooperation for information; resource sharing is a well beaten track for information professionals though sometimes it has been referred to a library networking or library resource sharing.
Resource sharing in libraries is not a new concept. It has long been used to improve access and service through borrowing and lending from other libraries. Cooperation and sharing have been transformed by information technology and the move from a print to a digital environment. Recent developments in library funding and the growth in importance of electronic materials have led to a change in thinking about libraries cooperation and the growth of formal cooperative body like Library Consortia.
However, technological advances and changes in the form of resources from print to electronic medium has led to rapid proliferation of several information resources in the form of E-Books, Web Journals, Online Databases and E-Reference works. Co-operation can take place either at local, national or international level. Dobrzyliska )2007( studied that in the past, we were able to observe close co-operation at the national level between libraries in similar disciplines for instance, cooperation of groups of medical, technical and economics libraries. This form of co-operation has existed until today. At the beginning of the 1990’s, a new configuration of library co-operation was initiated, that is, co-operation between libraries in various disciplines. Consortium aimed at choosing, purchasing and implementing the same integrated library system.
Primary purpose of establishing a Library Consortium is to share physical resources including books and periodicals, among members of particular organization or institution. However, increasing number of publishers is using the internet as a global way to offer their publications to the international community of users. Consortium plays a very important role in the field of library and information centers for resources sharing because it provides better sharing options of available resources in E-format. The primary reason for founding consortia open associations of information services in the Czech Republic seem to be the possibility of obtaining access to extensive and highly expensive information sources under more convenient conditions than if each of the participating institutions had to organize this access separately. Considering the prices, to purchase, respire such sources individually would be out of the question for the absolute majority of existing consortia members. Another reason is the need for solving certain concrete problems of the information practice that applies to a larger number of libraries and information services. Treatment of those problems exceeds the potential of individual institutions and is ineffective and complicated.
Consortium’s have been one of the basic concepts in the field of libraries since the second half of 20th century. Information centers have failed to meet the user demands as the number of international publications increased and this in turn, has forced them to share documents and develop common collections, while it also paved the way for consortiums. Inter-library loans, document delivery, establishment of union catalogs were also among the main activities of consortiums, in the same time in which printed publications were dominating. Electronic publications have dominated the information services since the second half of 1990’s. As a result, consortiums have quickly become widespread internationally and concentrated their activities mainly on buying the same databases together with the others.
Anderson (2004( explored in his worked that information professionals have to learn and be aware of the different media in which resources are available in order to be able to provide them. They also have to deal with all the different products and packages that are on offer as well as benchmark and then, choose the best according to the needs of the patrons. This situation places a great deal of stress on the professionals where, on one and they have to brush up on the knowledge of technology/ tools. On the other hand, learn new management skills working in cohesion with groups of institutions and their policies.
Concept of Consortia:
The concept of consortium perhaps originated or evolved from the concept of cooperation, coordination and collaboration. Consortium is originated from Latin word “Consor” where con indicates the meaning of together and “sor” describes meaning of partnership, association or society. The published literature indicates that the concept is not new and it refers to co-operation, co-ordination and collaboration between libraries for the purpose of sharing information resources. A consortium could be described as a group of organizations who come together to fulfill a combined objective that usefully requires co-operation or the sharing of resources and need to have a clear mutual goal in order to ensure their success. Consortia consist of elaborate committee structures, full time staff and executive directors, web pages, policies, procedures and the panoply of an organization to be taken seriously. They are beginning to include other type of organization as well as libraries, museums, hospitals, research groups and historical societies.
The consortium with its collective strength of participation institutions has attracted highly discounted rates of subscription coupled with most favorable terms of agreement. A successful consortium should be based on geographic proximity, a period of maturation, involvement of front line library staff and a clear understanding of the libraries common objectives. Working in consortia and subscribing to many resources also implies an upgrade and adaptability to new tools and technology. The nature of activity of the libraries is an important factor for the tenancy to cooperate and establish consortia. Bansode (2007) found a consortium to be a co-operative arrangement among groups or institutions or an association or society. Consortia are commonly formed to increase the purchasing capacity of the collaborating institutions, to expand the resource availability and to offer automated services.
Library Consortia: Meaning, Definition and Growth:
The exact date of the introduction of the term ‘Library Consortia’ is not clear, but the meaning of consortia as being an association or partnership has long being a principle of librarianship. However, libraries had not used it widely until 1980. Shachaf (2003( worked on that Library Consortia, a new kind of library cooperation, were created as a spontaneous reaction to the journals crisis and the new e-Environment. A Library Consortium formation can be local, regional, state, national and inter institutional level. Library Consortia development processes were examined from an ecological approach, combining historical perspective, dynamic developmental approach and social structure, stressing the issues of permeable boundaries in Library Consortia and the manifestation of inter-organization relationships.
Traditionally library cooperation meant sharing collections in some way but it could also seen in sharing of services or processes such as joint cataloguing of materials or of staff and user training .In general, most libraries kept their autonomy and consortia involvement was a peripheral library services. There are areas in which no libraries irrespective of its size can be entirely self—sufficient. This problem is solved through forming Library Consortia for information resource sharing. Unlike many other service activities, libraries do not have strong competition among themselves because their target populations are usually divided along organizational or geographical boundaries. An academician conducts his/her research mainly through his/her own institutions library and local community usually uses the local for its information needs. Electronic publishing and telecommunication have enabled Library Consortium to expand both in number and functions over the last decade.
A Library Consortium is a group of two or more libraries that have agreed together to cooperate with each other in order to fulfill certain similar needs usually resource sharing. It is not about sharing the resources but also improving access of information. Library Consortium is a community which has formally agreed to coordinate cooperates or consolidate certain function to achieve mutual objectives. Pandian (2003) discussed that the Consortium term is now used perhaps too broadly and encompasses everything from formal legal entities such as incorporated or government agencies to informal groups that comes together solely to achieve better pricing for purchasing electronic information.
Definitions of Library Consortia:
According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, “Consortium is an agreement, combination or group as of companies, formed to undertake an enterprise beyond the resources of any one member”.
Cambridge online dictionary, defined “Consortium is an organization of several business or banks, joining as a group for a shared purpose”.
Aldrich, Bolton and Sasaki (1998) assessed the meaning that “Consortia usually involve horizontal collaboration among direct competitors”.
Hirshon (1999) explained that “Library Consortia is a generic term to indicate any group of libraries that are working together towards a common goal whether to expand cooperation on traditional library services such as collection development or electronic information services”.
According to Allen and Hirshon (1998), “the most important development for academic libraries during the current decade has been the move towards growth from organizational self sufficiency to a collaborative survival mode as epitomized by the growth of Library Consortia”.
Oxford English Dictionary defined “Consortium as an association typically of several companies for a common purpose, it is an association of similar type of organization who are engaged for producing and servicing the common things for providing services for a specific purpose of its users”.
According to American Heritage Dictionary, “A Consortium is said to be a cooperative arrangement among group of institution or an association or society”.
In another words we can say that “Library Consortium would be the coming together of libraries to achieve a common goal that is beyond what an individual library could achieve on its own”.
Growth of Library Consortia:
Library Consortium development is rooted in the history of library cooperative efforts and is now also driven by the needs to provide remote users with licensed access to electronic resources. Many libraries in India till today are not in a Academic Position to afford to procure all documents and subscribe to core journals in major disciplines or CD—ROM databases. Biswas (2003) explored that in India the concept of Library Consortia emerged with the birth of library networks. Library networks started with initiatives of NIS SAT in forming CALIBNET in 1986, DELNET (Developing Library Network) in 1988 and INFLIBNET (Information and Library Network) in 1988, to promote resource sharing. There are many libraries in India, have setup consortia among themselves for resource sharing. On national level, INFLIBNET has taken initiation about a formidable change in developing an adequate infrastructure in libraries to be a part in the networked environment.
Kemdarne (2012) reviewed that the common form of library cooperation began with the sharing of union catalogue, storage facilities, collection development and human resources at local, regional and national level so as to provide an efficient service for their and users. The other form of cooperation was based on inter library loans services. In the present day, context the Library Consortia have changed and moved on to digitization, preservation and virtual reference service since many libraries started getting automated and used computer for bibliographic processing activities and database searching. Bostick (2001) studied that the United States has a long tradition of library cooperation. Library Consortia have existed there for over a century and have gone through several phases of development. The first phase was in the late nineteenth century, when the American Library Association formed the Cooperation Committee, which was later renamed to the Committee on Coordination. The Library of Congress began a cooperative cataloging program in the early 1900’s to distribute cataloging information and cards to participating libraries on a nation-wide basis.
An early academic consortium was the Triangle Research Libraries Network. The earlier ones were developed mainly to share collections and occasionally to combine buying power. Many types of libraries, including academic, public, school, medical and other special libraries formed similar groups. In the United States, the biggest impetus for the development of formal Library Consortia occurred after 1960 when automating library processes became a possibility. For many libraries, forming or joining consortia was the only way that they were able to afford expensive integrated library systems. By the late 1960’s, consortia were being formed specifically to acquire library automation products for the members, thus setting the stage for the current consortia movement.
Many academic Library Consortia were created as part of larger academic cooperative groups, where the universities included libraries in a larger agreement between two or more institutions. The Triangle Research Libraries is an early example of this practice. It is still a common way to form resource sharing among groups. Other Library Consortia require that the parent institution, not the library, be the official member, with all activity and governance generally delegated to the library. Increasingly, individual states are creating Library Consortia, some linking all academic, public and sometimes school libraries in the state. As with the consortia of the late 1960’s, that cooperated to purchase integrated library systems, automation is still a strong reason for cooperation but its definition has expanded to include a variety of electronic resources.
Library Consortia: Need and Features:
Why Library Consortia:
Information explosion: The explosion of information in multidimensional form and voluminous development has urged the libraries to adopt new philosophies and technologies for collection development and reduce costs of information. Today, society is suffering from information explosion, where it has become difficult to understand what is right or wrong. Information is exploiting in many forms and it is impossible to acquire all the form for any individual library. In that case it has become essential to acquire resources through Library Consortia.
Diversity of user needs: Requirement of user is ever growing and varies from user to user. Users have different nature and taste. They need a wide spectrum of information due to information explosion, presence of multi-discipline, specialization of subjects etc. It is difficult to acquire all the martial required by user so as to fulfill their individual requirement. No library can meet their demands with their own resources. Library can share the resources via Consortia for its fulfillment.
Professionalization of library services: Role of library professionals has been changed from mere conservator to facilitator of knowledge. Major functions of a librarian are to identify, select, procure, organize, preserve and disseminate information. Rapid changes have taken place in all the areas. It has posed great challenge for librarians to remain at the front-line of the profession.
Financial crunch: Today most of the libraries are faced with economic problems and suffering from financial crises, especially in developing countries to collect all the new generated information and to satisfy the high degree of aspiration for knowledge of the users. It has to acquire all the resources in limited funds. Library Consortia can solve this problem up to the limit. Cooperative efforts usually an economic motivation and that incentive continue today.
Rapid technological developments: Rapid technological development has resulted in a constant pressure for new hardware, software and education trading of library staff which requires a cooperative venture. The rapid progress of information technology through research and development activities all over the world, now tries to satisfy the information need of human being in diverse manner.
Impossibility of self-sufficiency: Information demand of the user to a greater extent is beyond the control of the capacity of librarians, much of the exercise rests on the input resources and it becomes impossible to be self sufficient by the library. Ramireddy (2011)
Features of Library Consortia:
Round the clock availability: Library Consortia provides round the clock availability of information and resources to the users.
E-Publishing: Library Consortia promotes e-Publishing of information variously.
Direct purchase from publisher: Library Consortia assists in direct purchasing from publisher. It is the cooperative task to reduce the cost of purchase. As a result end users can take benefits of more resources than would be available through one library.
Staff development: It is helpful in developing efficiency of staff and results in staff development.
Easy interaction: Library Consortia provides easy interaction with quality of service.
Research and development activities: Library Consortia supports research and development activities and proves very helpful in growth of research related activities.
Back volume of information: Library Consortia proves very helpful and supporting in providing back volume of information.
Language barrier: Information is publishing in various formats and languages regardless of place, race, nation etc. Library Consortia make it possible, sharing of information and resource in different formats or languages etc. In this way, it avoids barrier of language.
Sharing of resources: Sharing is an important task for using resources at different formats for different purposes. Library Consortia promotes sharing of resources which make it easy to handle information in different platform.
Different subscription level: It provides different subscription level of different publishers and reciprocal borrowing.
Collection development policy: Library Consortia assists in building collection of document at national and international level and in planning of a policy for development of collection for a library/institution/organization etc.
Avoids space problem: It avoids space problem as using Library Consortia one don’t need to purchase or acquire every resource in the library.
Development of Information Communication Technology (ICT) environment: It helps in development of ICT environment which make possibility of obtaining best reading for the largest number per institution.
Economy in financial resources: It makes more effective use of central financial sources economy in maintaining and access to unsubscribed materials.
Effective and cheaper operation: Library Consortia creates more effective and cheaper operation in the library.
Problem solving: Library Consortia proves problem solving as it is difficult to be influenced by the individual institutions.
Joint licensing: It results in better term of license and provides joint licensing of resources in all formats.
Library Consortia: Functions
Nodal Agency: To act as a nodal agency for increasing the cooperation amongst the participating institutions.
Coordination: To coordinate all activities concerned with subscription of e-resources on behalf of consortium and to stimulate for further co-operation between libraries and information centers.
Set up work groups: To set up work groups on different subjects and organize their meetings with an aim to improve the functioning of consortium as well as identify new resources and evaluate the existing resources.
Maintenance: To maintain a web site for the consortium for the benefit of its members and to encourage sharing of resources in an online mode.
Review the progress: To review the progress of consortium at various stages and also review progress on other related issues like discontinuation of print or e-journals etc.
Propagation: To propagate the Consortium with other institutions and enroll new members into the consortium.
Agreement: To make a concrete agreement needed to be established for the participating libraries in consortia to achieve a common target.
Smooth administration: To establish a rational fort and to run for the smooth administration of Library Consortium.
Joint venture: To look after that all the participating libraries under Library Consortia must work jointly just like a joint venture in business sector to make it a total success.
Annual meetings: To organize annual meetings of consortium members.
Access to electronic resources: To provide access to electronic resources and integrating them into library programs.
Bridging the gap: To bridging the gap between resource rich and information resources deficient libraries.
Consortia Models and Perquisite for formation of Consortia:
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Open Consortia: This type of consortia is open ended and member libraries have the freedom to join or leave from consortium at any time. In this case publishers define a minimum number of libraries for the consortium to take off, at a specific rate per product. INDEST consortium, run by ministry of human resources department government, of India is an example of this type of consortia.
Closed Group Consortia: This type of consortia formed by the same type of member and has a common need to cross the resources in specific area. Here the formation and operation of the consortia guidelines and its administration are fairly easy ad simple. CSIR, DAE, IIM are examples of this type of consortia.
Centrally Funded Model: This type of Consortium depends on the central funding agency and parent body shoulders the financial responsibility of running the consortia. INDEST, UGC INFONET, CSIR, ICMR, MCIT are examples of this model.
Share Budget Model: This type of consortia comes out with the appropriate sharing of funds with of participation member. The management of fund is individually handled. IIM and FORSA are examples of this model.
Publishers Initiatives: Publisher offered a deep discount consortium price to participating libraries on national level. SCIENCE DIRECT, EMRALD are examples of this type of model.
Specific Group Consortia: These types of consortia deal with specific group. LISA plus consortia of university library is example of this type of model.
Subject based Consortia: These types of Consortia deal with specific subject. FORSA, UGC, DAE are examples of this type of model.
Regional Consortia: These types of Consortia covers specific region. Chandigarh Library Consortia is example of such type of Consortium.
E-Journal Consortia: INDEST, JIM Consortia, ICAR Consortia are examples of E-JOURNAL Consortia.
National Consortia: This model of consortia covers national level licensing of product like INDEST, UGC INFONET and is called national level consortium.
International Consortia: In this consortium libraries belonging to different countries participate. This may be formed either by the individual libraries such as OCLC or by bringing different national consortia under one umbrella.
Prerequisite for Consortia Formation:
Lal (2012) described various factors responsible for formation of Library Consortia. Consortia approach offers an attractive solution to many outstanding problems of participating libraries, need of sharing existing physical resources, purpose of identifying and addressing the common needs arise from developments in information technology.
Hardware: It must necessarily be a Pentium PC/ Server which would support modular enhancements likes CD Writer, document Scanner, CD Net and other network elements.
Software: It composed of different components like operating system, which could be either commonly used Windows or UNIX, LINUX etc and any library software which would enhance handling in house resources in an information centre.
Netware: One of the major elements for successful Library Consortia is a good network infrastructure in addition to LAN. The campus internet connectivity with a decent bandwidth has to be provided. This could be made possible only with dedicated telephone line and must also be supplemented by fax facility.
Human Ware: Library personnel need to be trained in using latest gadgets with which relevant information is stored, analyzed and disseminated to potential users. Training must also be given to library staff to create databases of library documents.
Library Consortia: Membership, Governance, Funding and License:
Membership in a consortium is a serious commitment for a library. It may involve a significant payment in membership dues and other necessary fees, although not all are expensive to join. Some are free and some have very modest membership dues. Patrick (1972) stated that in India, there is no fixed structure of membership while some consortia are open ended and provides facility for the libraries to join and leave as they please .Generally, large consortia create different level of membership, all institutions join the consortia gain the advantage of expanding their individual collections, when taking advantage of the other material of different collections, the individual member benefits by being a part of the consortia. The consortia get better financial resources because of increasing buying power of the number of institutions in its membership. This increased power sometimes libraries may be required to put a considerable amount of staff time towards consortia activities such as committee work, increased loan volume, the amount of staff, time requires etc, varies by type of consortium and type of activity but staff participation is essential to most successful consortia. Sometimes membership comprises universities who shared book collections through reciprocal borrowing and inter library loans an online library system containing multiple electronic resources and cooperative storage facility. Consortium will have electronic access to the full text of journals etc.
Governance:
Consortia tend to be governed by boards of directors. Sometimes, this board is a subset of another board particularly if the consortium is a part of a larger non library group. Often the board of director is the top level of consortium management. In India, the different academic Library Consortia are governed by different governing bodies. The CSIR E-Journal Consortium is governed by NISCAIR as coordinator with setting up of monitoring/steering committee, task force team and nodal officers from all albs, expenditure finance committee, negotiations committee etc. INDEST AICTE Consortium operates through it headquarters set up at IIT, Delhi under a national steering committee consisting of members from amongst beneficiary institutions. A national review committee has also been set up with an overall responsibility for making policies, monitoring the progress and coordinating with UGC and AICTE for promoting the activities of INDEST AICTE Consortium.
UGC INFONET Digital Library Consortium is governed by management committees consisting of.
Governing council-highest and decision making body and Governing board consisting of subject experts.
Committee under the governing board, various committees are formed such as negotiation committee, financial committee and expert committee etc. HELNET has a board of management constituted by RGUHS with…
The Vice Chancellor as its chairman of the board.
The University Librarian as co-coordinator.
The Registrar and the Finance Officer as ex-officio members.
Members from demand of faculties nominated by the university. Faculty committees are constituted by the board for each discipline to guide HELNET in the selection of resources for the consortium.
The CeRA is governed by the establishment of a CeRA co-ordination cell for negotiation and subscription of E-Journals and formation of mandatory committees for guiding and monitoring the wok of the Consortium. The committees under CeRA are
National steering committee.
Consortium working committee to consider day to day activities and suggest suitable actions.
CeRA monitoring committee for monitoring and negotiations with publishers. ICMR E-Journals Consortium works under guidance of the national level steering committee and the national level finance commit constituted after the approval of competent authority.
Funding:
The growth in importance of electronic materials has led to a change in thinking about how libraries cooperate and the growth of formal cooperative entities. Library funding methods for consortia are as varied as the types of consortia. Some are wholly funded by a source other than the membership. The consortium must aim for integration with its environment, in order to coalesce with publishers, vendors and libraries. Too little integration will result in isolation, reducing consortia effectiveness and perhaps leading to eventual dissolution. Often a governmental body and membership is free of charge. Most, however, use some sort of dues structure. Dues can vary from nominal to several depending on the services provided, the number of consortium staff and the nature of the projects undertaken by the consortium. Pant. et al( 2011) stated that increasingly, Consortia are taking a more entrepreneurial approach and attempt to create sustainable funding models. Resource allocation and equitable spending are current funding issues, especially when licensing large, ex-pensive databases to a number of libraries.
Licenses:
Consortia tend to be governed by a Board of Directors. Sometimes this board is a subset of another board, particularly if the consortium is part of a larger, non-library group. Often, however, the Board of Directors is the top level of Consortium management. Xenidou (2001)) presented the model which is a full Board of Directors, can become quite unwieldy for decision making in larger consortia, so a smaller governing council is often used, elected by the full board and reporting back to them. Boards generally elect officers from among themselves and these officers comprise the governing council. It is common practice to hire a coordinator, or executive director, to manage the routine activities and coordinate the daily work. This person is usually hired by the Board of directors and is responsible to them. The executive director is in direct contact with all the member libraries and over-sees the committee work and other activities performed by the member libraries staff. This type of Academic Position is becoming a viable career option in the library community. Larger consortia often have a staff reporting to the executive director. The staff many be as small as one part-time person. However, a consortium office staff can include a number of people, some with specialization in such areas as contract negotiation and member training programs. The Board of Directors sets the agenda for the consortium. This requires that the members of the board, who are usually the directors of the member libraries, be able to see more than just their individual library needs and look at what is for the greater good of the entire group. At times, this can cause conflict, especially when a proposed consortium goal does not meet a goal of the individual library.
This is particularly true in multi-type consortia, where different types of libraries must find commonalities. It can also be found in consortia where the members include a mix of library governance, such as publicly funded and privately funded university libraries. Thus, it is considered good practice for a consortium board, to develop a mission statement that articulates the group’s philosophy, with many consortia place on their web pages, as well as a plan of action agreeable to all members. In general, this will include a statement as to the level of participation expected of members. For example, some require the participation of all members in licensing agreements, while others do not. This decision can greatly affect negotiations with vendors, some of whom want total participation to obtain consortia rates, so it is an important point to consider. Participation in one or core consortia set a specific cultural tone for an individual library and may require a reassessment of its collections and services.
Although there are guidelines which are accepted by the Library Community, various problems still exist and are governing the negotiation process with publishers.
Maskell (2009) described the most important issues are:
The provision of access to the electronic information by non-registered uses on site.
The use of the electronic files to generate electronic copies for electronic document delivery to other university libraries.
Guarantees on the permanent storage, archiving of the information and the conditions for access in perpetuity.
The separation of electronic data and the applications. Several publishers desperately want to provide only access to their material in their preferred manner of form.
Seamless linking between bibliographic data acquired from intermediaries and the full text from different publishers in order to provide an integrated access to heterogeneous information.
Library Consortia: Challenges
Arora and Agarwal (2003) explored in their work that Library Consortia are facing new and different challenges. In addition to the traditional goals for resource-sharing and group purchases, they are look at other projects. Through collaborative efforts, libraries can try new ideas and take risks that they could not do on their own. Libraries continue to join together to share resources, to the consortia movement has endured for many years and has retained the original philosophy of sharing resources and strength in numbers, while constantly determining new directions for library cooperation. The Library Consortia movement is growing and expanding. It is stronger than ever before.
Marketing Libraries: Consortia can be a great benefit to member libraries in publicizing their collections and services, as well as the Consortiums work.
Political Action: Consortia are increasingly involved in political action. For example, in the United States a major concern is the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act, known as UCITA, which will have a profound effect on software licensing. Many American library groups oppose UCITA, and Consortia are working together to both understand its implications and provide a united response to it.
Virtual Catalogs: Virtual catalog is both within a consortium and among consortia are another popular activity, particularly in those consortia where the members do not use the same integrated library system. Virtual catalogs of this sort, and the delivery options that go along with them, are emerging technologies and will soon become more commonplace. Olen and Smed (2011) stated, delivery of materials, with or without a virtual catalog, is an important problem that does not have one specific solution. Web portals are becoming an increasingly important component of a consortium work.
Developing ICT: Information and Communication Technology has touched every aspect of life due to its tremendous capacity to provide exceptional power. Consortia can play an important tool in providing resources with ICT application.
Hosting distance education classes and programs: It requires more attention.
Disaster preparedness: It lacks readiness to put into quick use by scholars.
Achieve stronger influence over the quality of the product: It required qualitative resources sharing to result in effective document delivery service and to increase the research productivity of the institutions in both terms qualitative and quantitative.
Combine their buying power for better prices: It brings pressure on commercial publisher to reduce the growth rate in the cost of information and to bring down the unit cost of information.
Determine publisher and vendor policies: The subscriptions have steadily eroded since funds available to universities have not been able to cover the rising cost of the literature. Policies should be determined for publisher and vendors.
Address an ever-changing array of needs and services: Consortium should be focuses changing needs and services of the present scenario.
Library Consortia: Advantages and Limitations:
Advantages of Library Consortia:
Increase the access base: Library Consortia with the dawn of internet era are compelled to provide relevant information essential to its end user within a short span of time either from its in house holdings or from resources available in other libraries.
Rational utilization of funds: Consortia identify priority for funding within libraries and to be proactive in influencing national agendas/priority for funding for research support.
Gateway of information: Library Consortium functions as a central gateway for users, to access locate transform and utilize information resources in a variety of printed and electronic formats via applications, databases etc.
Ensure continues subscription: Consortia based subscription to electronic resources provides access to wider number of electronic resources continues and at substantially lower cost.
Qualitative and Quantitative resources: It provides the community with physical and virtual access to the shared resources having qualitative and quantitative value of all libraries.
Enhancing the visibility image of the library: It publicizes and disseminate information about libraries and its activities as widely as possible in appropriate context.
Improve existing library services: Consortia promotes improvement in existing library services which helps in boosting professional image
Harness developments: A consortium proves to be very effective in harness development in IT, facilitating building digital libraries.
Access to wider number of e-resources : It come up with the newly generated knowledge published in different forms, such as printed and non printed documents, electronic media on various disciplines, multi disciplinary and new generated subject area.
Optimum utilization of funds: Through Library Consortia, member intuitions can subscribe electronic resources at highly discounted rates of subscription.
Seamless access easy and round the clock access: A consortium provides seamless and east access and resource sharing on internet by creating databases among the libraries.
No fear of wear, tear and thefts: Library Consortia promotes use and sharing of electronic resources which demand neither library space nor shelling cost nor can they by ear or tear and nor they can be stolen from the library.
Helpful in proving better library services : Library Consortia are considered now a medium of proving better libraries services as enhanced library services are provided with an emphasis on access to new electronic resources including online databases and services offered through the internet and World Wide Web.
Cost sharing for technical and training support: Use of Library Consortia proves cost sharing for providing training and technical support.
License for use, archival access and preservation of subscribed electronic resources: The consortium facilitates the library to get benefit for wider access to electronic resources at affordable cost and at the best terms of licenses. The consortium have been offered better terms of licenses for use and archival access.
Available comprehensive collection: Consortia are very helpful in developing suitable collection and acquisition policy.
Eliminate the need for different passwords for each titles : Use of Library Consortia reduces the need for passwords for every title accessibility.
Improve better resource sharing: It provides each institution with the ability to share resources without sacrificing the individuality.
Electronic document delivery to user via the libraries : It provides electronic document delivery to the end user which promotes easy access to electronic resources.
Virtual reference services: It provides a platform for online and virtual reference service to researchers.
Limitations of Library Consortium:
Special skills in handling e-resources: Library Consortia required special skills in handling E-Resources.
High initial investment: It required high initial investment in licenses and Information Communication Technologies.
Rights direct access: The problem of access rights, direct access from publishers and through nodal agency by mounting the database on them.
Information technology: It suffers from limitation of information technology.
Unreliable telecommunication link: Library Consortia consists of unreliable telecommunication link which creates hurdles in communication among member institutions.
Insufficient bandwidths: Sometimes Library Consortia consists of insufficient bandwidths which require necessity of Internet access ID.
Back Up of databases: The problem of back up of databases after discontinuation from the Library Consortium.
Problems of e-journals: The users are not accepting E-Journals as with print journals .They even now feel difficult to download, acquire and access it.
Insufficient service: A Library Consortium deals with shortcomings in respect of insufficient mutual information service provided to user.
Lack of coordination: Library Consortia are lacking for co-ordination of present activities and preparation of new ones. Integration already acquired information sources and their interconnection with book catalogues, collective catalogue etc.
Long term perspective: Library Consortium require long term perspective from state assistance in concerned field.
Excessive contribution fee: Library Consortia suffers from it as sometimes organizing body may charge excessive contribution fee which is quite high and dependent on their will.
Bureaucracy: Since there is no completion, so bureaucracy may arise in a Library Consortium.
Subscription Cost: The source of funding to meet subscription cost is another problem because it requires a major investment at the initial stage to develop necessary infrastructure and purchasing of computers and other equipment. There is aggregate chance of manipulation of funds.
Summary:
Thus we can say that, Library Consortia is described as a group of organizations whose purpose is to collectively facilitate and support the work of a service program in ways that add material and human resources beyond those available to each organization/individual. The aim should be to deliver more than the sum of the individual parts .A consortium approach is the ideal solution in a situation of scarcity of funds but it is not without its challenges. The concept is considered to be a metamorphosis brought by the fast changing information environment for supporting better library services through joint actions. The development of Library Consortia is the only panacea to overcome all the barriers of resource sharing programs. In a developing country like India different steps are being taken to disseminate information more or less in all subjects’ areas especially in science and technology. Any set of objectives will only achieved if there is willingness to join together and to believe that more will be achieved through efforts of the whole than an individual level.
In the present age, access to information resources is more important than the collection building. Libraries in India are facing a lot of problems due to static budget and growing prices of library collection. A lot of efforts have been taken in past few years to overcome the problem of finance by resource sharing thorough consortia. It is impossible for a single library to monitor all the explosion of knowledge filed and accumulate for the users.
The libraries with their diminishing or at the best static financial allocations have to consider new ways to consolidate global resources amongst them in order to maximize their financial resources. The combination of these developments has resulted in development of shared subscription or consortia based subscription to journals everywhere in the world.
The consortia cooperation is in reality, a step towards inter institutional libraries as autonomous entities where libraries pools shares of their funds for collection development into mutual commitments. There is no doubt that consortia will be able to deliver the goods for more effectively and efficiently than individual libraries. The existence of various Library Consortia in different parts of the world has illustrated one principle. A successful consortium has to have clear goals, a coherent membership and a structure that matches its goals and membership.
In the light of above discussion establishment of better Consortium integrating intellectual access are all the distinct steps moving towards the 21st century libraries. There must be accessibility to the variety of information reserves particularly in an environment of proliferating electronic information resources in order to education, research and lifelong learning. It would therefore be best to consult with the established consortia to achieve this goal.
For cite this article use this reference:
Parveen, N. (nd). Perception and use of library consortia among scientists in Agricultural Institutes of Uttar Pradesh. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/10603/190230
“Human Resource” is relatively a new concept in the field of management and organization and became popular during the early 1970’s. The term signifies the humanistic approach in solving social problems and also shows that managing people as resources rather than factors of production or simply as human beings with feeling and emotion could result better for both the organization and its employees.
Human as resource is the important and vital component for an organization. The success of the organizations is solely depend on the human resources especially when they are service oriented and deals with other human beings as their clients. It is the people who are dynamic can only build a progressive and growth- oriented organization. Effective people as employees contribute to the effectiveness of the organization. Competent and motivated people can make things happen and enable an organization to achieve its goal. Therefore it is very much essential to ensure that the dynamism, effectiveness, competency and motivation of its employees always remain at a high level.( Padmanabhan & Nityanandam ,2011)
Considering the importance of human as resources like any other resources of an organization, modern management consider Human Resource Development (HRD) programme as an integral part of the overall management practices of an organization. Human resource development is nothing but a process of helping people to acquire skill, knowledge and competencies. In an organizational context human resource development is a process by which the employees of an organization are helped in a continuous and planned way to acquire new competencies through a process of planning, performance, feedback, training, periodic review of performance, assessment of the developmental needs and creation of development opportunities through training, job rotation, responsibility definition and such other mechanisms.
The quality and performance improvement is the main objective of Human Resource development. While discussing manpower planning and resource development it is very much essential that all these aspects must be seen in the context of surrounding society, socio- economic change, the political system of a country. The HRD programmes are concerned with five kinds of changes, which are as follows—
❖ Changes in skills
❖ Changes in knowledge
❖ Changes in attitudes
❖ Changes in awareness of staff,
❖ Changes in motivation to perform
2. Human resource philosophy:
The basic principle of human resource philosophy as expounded by its proponents may be briefly expressed as, “Employees are viewed as investment and that will provide long term rewards to the organization in the form of greater productivity if they are managed and developed effectively. Managers create policies, programmes and practices to satisfy both the economic and emotional needs of the employees. They create a working environment in which the employees are encouraged to develop and utilize their skills and abilities to the maximum extent. Personnel programmes and practices are evolved with the goal of balancing the needs and requirements of the organization and those of the employees. (Ganihar & Nayak , 2011,p.2)
3. The concept of Human Resource Development:
Human resource development (HRD) is a dynamic and continuous process encompassing individuals, organizations and societies. It has been interpreted in various ways in different context and across culture.
The concept of Human resource development was introduced by Leonard Nadler in 1984 in a conference organized by the American society for training and development. Nadler defines HRD as “Those learning experiences, which are organized for a specific time and designed to bring about possibility of behavioral change”.( Ganihar & Nayak, 2011,p.11)
Among Indian authors T.V Rao worked extensively on human resource development. Rao defined human resource development in the organizational context as a process by which the employees of an organization are helped in a continuous, planned way to:
a) Acquire or sharpen capabilities required to perform various functions associated with their present expected and future roles;
b) Developed their general capabilities as individuals and discover and exploit their own inner potentials for their own and / or organizational development purposes;
c) Development of an organizational culture in which superior subordinate relationships, teamwork and collaboration among sub unit are strong and contribute to the professional well- being, motivation and pride of employees.( Ganihar & Nayak, 2011)
Dynamic and growth oriented organizations require Human resource development (HRD) to succeed in a fast changing environment. Normally, HRD systems would include the following mechanisms or sub- systems:-
a) Performance appraisal of employees
b) Career planning of employees
c) Training and development
d) Quality management
e) Productivity improvement
f) Improving quality of work life
g) Rewards for achievement oriented performances
h) Promoting team spirit
i) Periodic employee surveys and diagnosis of organizational health
j) Research and systems development
k) Storing of Human Resource Information
4. Needs of Human Resource Development:
In an organization employees need to have different kinds of competencies like knowledge, skills and attitude in technical and technological areas, human relations areas and conceptual areas to achieve its goal. Followings are the needs why human resource development is essential in an organization—
a) For survival and stability.
b) For continuous development of employees’ competencies to perform well in the constantly changing working environment.
c) To identify competency gaps of employees and train them to perform their present and future role effectively and create conditions to help employees bridge these gaps through development.
d) To enhance competency development in continuing basis for effective performance.
e) To increase the motivation of the employees to promote team building and collaboration climate.
f) To make them committed in their work.
g) To make them constant desire to put in effort and make things happen.
h) To make them trust each other in the workplace.
i) To encourage to take initiative and show reactivity.
j) To collaborate team spirit.
k) To increase quality and productivity
5. Components of Human Resource Development:
The Human Resource Development (HRD) programme is a planned activity of an organization. It must include a clear statement of goals and objectives of that programme. Beside this, it should also include the strategic and operational planning along with the appropriate means, mechanisms and instruments for execution. The components of HRD differ from organization to organization though there is very little variation among them. Followings are the expected components of HRD in the field of Library and Information Science.
5.1: Strategic and operational planning: Strategic and Operational planning defines the objectives of the organization, preparing policy guidelines, evolving pragmatic plans and strategies for executive actions and establishing appropriate procedures, rules and regulations for implementation at all levels. This would ensure:
❖ Professionalism;
❖ Personal involvement in work in achieving set targets;
❖ Formalization;
❖ Enhancement of work skills;
❖ Increasing application of information technologies;
❖ Evolution of a corporate culture; and
❖ Continued progress and development.
This approach would encourage the organizations to plan their future staffing structures and to take into account the changes in services and technology. It has been expected that if this approach exercise properly and on continuing basis it could eliminate the problems of oversupply or under-supply of particular skills within an organization. It also aids the determination of training needs in relation to new skills required.
Operational planning takes care to implement and execute the activities and programms to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization. Further it handles personnel recruitment, section, placement and deployment and personnel skill development through training and hands —on experience. Moreover the exercises like job analysis, job description, job specification and structuring competencies could help to ensure right person into right job to achieve quality and to ensure work efficiency.
5.2: Evaluation: Evaluation is one of the most important parts of human resource development programme. Evaluation is an ongoing process which ensures a consistent quality of services to the institution or the organization. A proper and systematically commissioned and conducted evaluation can make an organization professional and result oriented in their approach and working.
5.2.1 Important requirement for sound evaluation:
a) Adequate preparation on the part of the evaluator/ assessor:- To do a successful and effective evaluation the administering group is needed to be well prepared. Many a time it has been seen that evaluations or assessments have take place without any proper preparation or without strong supporting materials to guide the efforts. Hence, through preparation of the administering and administered group in terms of the evaluation/ assessment is essential.
b) Adequate Technical Support:- To make evaluation effective and more meaningful adequate technical assistance in the form of information and training must be made available.
c) Fine tuning to the changing demands:- The evaluation or assessment practices need to be responded to the trend of changing scenario of the institutions or organizations in their respective fields. The changes may be either in the policy level or in the practice level.
d) Shared Language:- Very often it happens that the message of evaluation and its needs for overall development of the institution or the organization is not properly communicated. For that the purpose of evaluation could not be achieved as the whole process is not understood and sometime misunderstood by them who are to be evaluated.
e) Adequate Institutional Policies:- An institution or an organization often fail to develop and provide sound policies to guide the evaluation process. Therefore a sound policy is needed to help the evaluator to go in a right track.
f) Transitory Interventions:- Evaluation is carried out to bring a change in the system or to make a change for whom they are in the system. But the changes do not come quickly, pervasively or thoroughly. The people who are to be evaluated are needed to be convinced that these are real benefits to them. They put up with the change only as long as the program is being carried out.
g) Effective Instruction:- The evaluation of a given group requires a common language. A better understanding of the best practices required of evaluators is necessary to avoid common errors. At the same time, standards are necessary to guide evaluative decisions, develop grading systems that reflect appropriate criteria and improve preparation of those who conduct and use evaluation.
5.3 Motivation: Motivation is fundamental element of human management and to get the things done in the desired ways. It is a process that starts with a physiological or psychological need that activates behaviour or a drive that is aimed at a goal. It is the driving force by which human achieve their goal. Motivation can be defined as “It is the act of stimulating someone or oneself to get desired course of action, to push right button to get desired reaction”. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic. Motivation is the third dimension of performance.
5.3.1 Needs and importance of motivation: Motivation offers several importance’s to the organization and to the employees. They are as follows-
❖ Higher efficiency
❖ Reduce absenteeism.
❖ Reduces employee turnover.
❖ Improves a corporate image.
❖ Good relations.
❖ Improved morale.
❖ Reduced wastage’s and breakages.
❖ Reduced accidents.
❖ Facilitates initiative and innovation.
5.3.2 Motivational factors: There are several factors that motivate a person to work. The motivational factors can be broadly divided into two groups:
I. Monetary factors:
a) Salaries or wages:- Salaries or wages is one of the most important motivational factors. Reasonable salaries must be paid on time. While fixing salaries the organization must consider such as :
❖ Cost of living
❖ Company ability to pay
❖ Capability of company to pay etc,
b) Bonus:- It refers to extra payment to employee over and above salary given as an incentive. The employees must be given adequate rate of bonus.
c) Incentives:- The organization may also provide additional incentives such as medical allowance, educational allowance, allowance, etc.
d) Special individual incentives:- Special individual incentives are to be given to deserving employees for giving valuable suggestions.
II. Non monetary factors:
a) Status or job title:- By providing a higher status or designations the employee must be motivated. Employees prefer and proud of higher designations.
b) Appreciation and recognition:- Employees must be appreciated for their services. The praise should not come from immediate superior but also from higher authorities.
c) Delegation of authority:- Delegation of authority motivates a subordinate to perform the tasks with dedication and commitment. When authority is delegated, the subordinate knows that his superior has placed faith and trust in him.
d) Working conditions:- Provision for better working conditions such as air-conditioned rooms, proper plant layout, proper sanitation, equipment, machines etc, motivate the employees.
e) Job security:- Guarantee of job security or lack of fear dismissal, etc can also be a good way to motivate the employees. Employees who are kept temporarily for a long time may be frustrated and may leave the organization.
f) Job enrichment:- Job enrichment involves more challenging tasks and responsibilities. For instance an executive who is involved in preparing and presenting reports of performance, may also asked to frame plans.
g) Workers participation:- Inviting the employee to be a member of quality circle, or a committee, or some other form of employee participation can also motivate the work-force.
h) Cordial relations:- Good and healthy relations must exist throughout the organization. This would definitely motivate the employees.
i) Good superiors:- Subordinates want their superiors to be intelligent, experienced, matured, and having a good personality. In fact, the superior needs to have superior knowledge and skills than that of his subordinates. The very presence of superiors can motivate the subordinates.
j) Other factors:- There are several other factors of motivating the employees:
❖ Providing training to the employees.
❖ Proper job placements.
❖ Proper promotions and transfers.
❖ Proper performance feedback.
❖ Proper welfare facilities.
❖ Flexible working hours.
The success of an organization is solely depend on the human resources especially when they are service oriented and deals with other human beings as their clients. It is the people who are dynamic can only build a progressive and growth- oriented organization. Effective people as employees contribute to the effectiveness of the organization. Competent and motivated people can make things happen and enable an organization to achieve its goal. Therefore it is very much essential to ensure that the dynamism, effectiveness, competency and motivation of its employees always remain at a high level.
6. Pre-requisites for a successful Human Resource Development:
The success of a Human Resource Development programme depends on various factors, which are enumerated as follows:-
a) Top management support:- HRD programmes are generally employees oriented and need the support of top management. The support may be moral support, financial support, administrative support etc.
b) Constructive attitude:- Both the management and the employees should have to develop constructive attitude towards each other. Mutual understanding and cooperation is very much essential for a successful HRD programme.
c) Developing sound policies and procedures:- The policies and procedures related to HRD programme should be well designed and revised timely according to the need of the organization. All the policies and procedures must be clear and understandable to everyone. Moreover, the policies and procedures must be acceptable for everyone.
d) Development of effective practices:- The implementation of various policies pertains to man- management selection calls for developing effective practices so that various policies could be translated into action. (Randhawa, 2012)
e) Good communication system:- There must be a good and prompt communication system in an organization to avoid any suspicion, rumour, doubt and misunderstanding between the management and the employees.
f) Follow-up of result:- This refers to the constant review of the HRD programmes so that existing practices may be evaluated and also the problem and undesirable tendencies can be identified. Besides these special emphasis should be placed upon gathering relevant information related with absenteeism, employee turnover, job satisfaction, grievances, disputes, wage and salary administration etc.
7. Strategy for Developing Human Resource:
There are different types of strategies for developing the human resource. The basic strategy of human resource development has been cited below:-
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Fig 1:- Human Resource Development strategy
Regarding human resource development encouragement by the management of the organization is very much essential. Provision of in house training and job rotation among the working staff after a specific period of time is also very essential from the point of view of the human resource development. Continuing Education Programme (CEP) is another important factor for human resource development. Moreover, Continuing Education (CE) is also an important component of Librarianship in these days of rapid technological change and intensified career concerns. Elizabeth Stone define Continuing Education as any kind of learning experience that will introduce new skills or concepts, fulfilling the needs of the individual for career advancement and improved personal competency. (Meyers, 1990, p. 251).
8. Implementation of HRD:
The first step towards HRD in an organization is to set up a unit to deal exclusively with personnel development programmes. The mechanisms to implement these programmes are to introduce a process of performance evaluation of staff at all levels, assess deficiencies or under performance and such other deficiencies in performance. Necessary positive steps are to be taken and design specific instruments to set things right and get maximum productivity through the optimum efficiency of the staff. The HRD unit must concern itself with the following aspects:-
a) Performance appraisal:- Performance appraisal is nothing but the periodical evaluation of the performance of the staff. Proper evaluation can be carried out with appropriate yardstick; data on performance review and feedback from the employee are estimated with reference to the employee’s optimum potential.
b) Role analysis:- Role analysis s concerned with optimum stress, linkages and autonomy of an employee occupied a particular position. Optimum stress refers to tuning a person to raise his contribution to the optimum level. Linkages provide for infra and inter relation between individuals and teams within the units and outside. Autonomy permits an individual to show initiative in dealing with a new problem and finding a solution to it.
c) Training policies:- These are popular and widely practiced in most of the organizations to build up staff skills. Training has to be with reference to the types of training required by an organization. In — house training or training by professional bodies or institutions, evaluation of trained employees and utilization of training could be obtained.
d) Communication policies:- An appropriate internal communication system is very much essential to prevent unnecessary misunderstanding among the staff. The employees would also be properly informed about the activities and progress of the organization.
e) Job rotating:- Job rotation is nothing but the justified transfer of employees to become experienced and expert in different areas of work in different sections of an organization. This would also contribute to the health of the organization.
f) Organization development:- An organization has to be dynamic and should positively respond to the changes in environment, advances in technology and diversification of products and services. Growth and self- developing mechanisms are important for organization development.
g) Award, reward and incentives:- Award, reward and incentive schemes both for individual and groups may generate greater involvement of employees in work and contribute to quality assurance. But this scheme needs very judicious implementation to avoid unwanted situation which may affect negatively to the organization.
h) Organizational culture:- An appropriate environment is very much essential for the development of an organizational culture. Communication within the organization that permits top- down, bottom — up, horizontal, circular and external communication has to be built into the organization. This would ensure smoothness in employee- employer relationship. This is also very much essential to create a healthy environment to develop a work culture, contributing positively to the organization.
All the above aspects would be influenced by factors like management style, environment, technology, resource availability, background and past history of the organization etc. ( Dhiman, & Rani , 2005, pp. 158- 181)
9. Human Resource Development and Library and Information Science Profession:
The quality of Library and Information Centres is largely depending on the dynamic, motivated, skilled and competent staff and the infrastructure facilities provided for their service and development. The Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals are considered as one of the vital elements that can really make a library the knowledge hub. If the working professionals of a library are competent enough then he/ she could build a collection of information resources which really mean as resources and also could attract user through his/ her services.
Now a days there are lots of discussion on capacity building of different institutions and organizations. In case of Library and Information Centres, for effective capacity building and for effective implementation of service delivery capacity building focus on different aspects, which are as follows:-
a) Strategic management
b) Policy Development and Management
c) Ethics of Good Governance
d) Performance Management
e) Human Resource development and management
f) Target Setting
g) Bench marking
h) Monitoring and evaluation
i) Team Building
j) Managing and Leading strategic change
k) Effective Communication Skills
l) Negotiation skills and management
m) Total Quality Management
n) Management Information System
o) Time management
p) Customer care
( Source:- http://www.nmlindia.nic.in/pages/display/41-capacity-building)
It could be seen that almost all these sixteen aspects are somehow related to the human factor of the Library and Information centres. Therefore it could be established that Human resource development is one of the most important part of the management of Library and Information centres. As the libraries are service oriented organization they cannot keep themselves away from HRD practices and the benefits that can be derived by applying those practices.
Moreover, Library and Information Science is a profession in which changes undergo rapidly due to the adoption of Information and Communication technologies which itself is ever changing. Therefore, development of Human factor is a serious matter of concern for Library and Information centers. As a service oriented organization who serves human as their clients by some other groups of Human being, Libraries cannot think to achieve their goal without the development of its employees. Since the modern library movement, the importance of LIS professionals has been strength steadily all over the world. Today LIS professionals have to acquire and cultivate knowledge and skills for communicating the sought information to a variety of users in an efficient and effective manner.
Human Resource Development in the field of Library and Information Science can be done by various methods, which may be as follows:-
❖ The curriculum of Library and Information Science must be revised according to the need of the hour.
❖ Upgrading the skills of the working LIS professionals at all level to ensure the quality library services.
❖ Professional library staff should be accorded full academic and management status.
❖ HRD programme for in- service personnel should be organized on regular basis.
❖ LIS schools, professional associations and group should organized seminars, workshops, different types of training programmes for upgrading the knowledge and skills of the LIS professionals.
❖ A developmental plan and policy at the national level is essential for a planned growth of workforce.
10. Human Resource Development and the University Libraries:
Human Resource Development (HRD) is the need of the hour for the University Libraries as they are considered as the heart of the University education system. Libraries can become dynamic and knowledge hub in true sense only through the efforts and competencies of their human resource. Personal policies can keep the morale and motivation of the people high, but these efforts are not enough to make the organization dynamic and to take in right directions. The knowledge, skills and abilities of the employees must continuously need to be acquired, sharpened and used to make the organization dynamic and efficient. Therefore, it is very much essential that University Libraries of our country must re- orient their personnel policies with HRD programme as the guiding philosophy.
Moreover, one of the pressures which intensifies the need for personnel development in libraries is the influence of modem concepts which have tried to adopt to such contemporary realities as those summarized by Warren G Bennis (Kaur & Singh , 2007, p.365):-
a) Rapid and unexpected change;
b) Growth in size beyond what is necessary for the work being done;
c) Complexity of modem technology, in which integration between activities and persons of very diverse, highly specialized competence is required; and
d) A change in managerial values toward more humanistic democratic practices.
The constant need for change is another pressure, which intensifies the need for human development. The role of the library in its changing culture seems to be an issue everywhere. Evidence of cultural change alters the missions and goals of the library, modify its priorities, and call for change within the library to meet the challenges and needs of the society. It is believed that libraries,” like any other organization, can no longer afford to ignore the psychological, technical, technological, sociological, economic and political changes taking place , both in the external and internal environment of the organizations. Consequently the work of the library and information professionals has become increasingly complex.” Guy Sylvestre in the article entitled “Of book, men and machines” has rightly said that “we librarians have no choice accordingly but to adopt ourselves to a changing world, if we are to survive in this new era.”(Kaur & Singh, 2007,p.366).
The need of Human Resource Development in University Libraries is to-
❖ Enable professionals to acquire basic technical competencies at the lower level; Administrative competencies in the middle level; Management abilities at the top level.
❖ Create a climate of responsibilities among the professionals to their work.
❖ Develop the capabilities of an employee as an individual.
❖ Develop the competencies of each professional in relation to their expected future role.
❖ Develop the cordial relationship between each employee and their superior.
❖ Create the team spirit
❖ Achieve collaboration among different units of the organization.
❖ Work out the organization’s overall health and self- renewing capabilities.
Therefore, it could be said that Human Resource Development interventions are must for the growth and survival of the Librarianship in this era of Information and Communication Technology which may be in the form of education, training, continuing education, continuous professional development and development of the personal competencies etc.
11. Manpower planning in libraries to have competent staff:
The dictionary meaning of planning is the act or process of making something that is intended to do or achieve in advance. In other words it means a decision which has taken in advance what is to be done. Manpower planning is nothing but the planning about the human resource to achieve the basic objectives of the organizations. It is a process for determining and assessing that the organization will have an adequate number of qualified persons available at proper times, performing jobs which would meet the needs of the organization and would also provide satisfaction for the individuals involved. It involves:-
a) Estimation of present and future requirements and supply of human resources based on the objectives and long term plans of the organization.
b) Calculation of net human resource requirement based on present level of human resources;
c) Initiating steps to change, mould and develop the existing human resource to meet the future human resource requirements;
d) Planning the necessary programme to get rest of human resource from outsides the organization and to develop the existing human resources.
Thus manpower planning involves an analysis of the existing manpower, their skills and capabilities, as well as understanding of future requirement of the organization.
It is a strategy for estimation, acquisition, utilization, improvement and preservation of good component of human capital.
11.A. The preplan activities before manpower planning includes:-
(i) Collection of data for job specification and job analysis;
(ii) Preparation of flow charting for various operation and system analysis;
(iii)Subsequent quantification and interpretation of the data;
(iv)Translation of the system analysis into manpower requirements.
11.B. The points that should be considered in manpower planning includes-
i) The objectives and goals of the library and the performance to achieve these through implementation of services should be considered in the manpower planning;
ii) Besides the routine jobs the emphasis should also be given on changing circumstances, revised objectives and programme adjustment because libraries are constantly changing social organization. The social forces and new technology are always influencing factors of the library.
iii) The staff structure should facilitate the understanding of the role of individual responsibilities.
iv) Each staff should be given opportunity to make useful contribution to the general functioning of the library.
v) Motivation is of prime importance in a library because in the library it is the service which matters most.
vi) Adequate communication should be maintained among the staff member and the staff must be kept informed of facts affecting their work.
vii) The manpower planning also should give clear-cut guidelines about recruitment and selection, test, placement, induction and orientation, training and development, etc. (http://www.netugc.com/manpower-planning)
11.1 Objectives of manpower planning:-
The main objectives of Manpower planning are as follows:-
a) Proper assessment of the need of human resource in future.
b) Anticipation of shortage or surplus and taking the corrective action.
c) To create a highly talented personnel in the organization.
d) To look after the weaker section.
e) To manage the challenges in the organization due to modernization, restructuring and re-engineering.
f) To facilitate the realization of the organization’s objectives by providing right number and types of personnel.
g) To lower the costs associated with personnel by proper planning.
h) To determine the future skill requirement.
i) To do career planning for individual employee.
j) Providing a better view of Human resource dimensions to top management.
k) Determining the training and development needs of the employees.
11.2 Advantages of Manpower Planning:
The advantages of manpower planning are enumerated as follows:-
❖ It is useful both for organization and its employees.
❖ It generates facilities to educate people in the organization.
❖ It brings about fast economic developments.
❖ It boosts the geographical mobility of labour;
❖ It provides smooth working even after expansion of the organization ;
❖ It opens possibility for workers for future promotions, thus providing incentive;
❖ It creates healthy atmosphere of encouragement and motivation in the organization;
❖ Training becomes effective; and
❖ It provides help for career development of the employees.
11.3 Steps in Manpower Planning:-
❖ Predict manpower plans;
❖ Design job description and the job requirements;
❖ Find adequate sources of recruitment;
❖ Give boost to youngsters by appointment to higher posts;
❖ Best motivation for internal promotion;
❖ Look after the expected losses due to retirement, transfer and other issues and
❖ See for replacement due to accident, death, dismissals and promotion.
11.4. The process of manpower planning:- Analysis of Organization’s objectives and Plans:-In the process cited above, while analysing the organizational objectives and plans the manager must have to consider the factors like time period, organization’s strategic decisions, flexibility, formality etc.
A. Analysis of Manpower requirement:- Manpower requirement can be analysed by the existing job analysis and job design. The analysis can be divided into two parts:- a) Demand Forecasting and b) Supply Forecasting.
a) Demand Forecasting:- it is a process that estimate organization’s future quantity and quality of people required. In this process various forecasting techniques are used such as: – Managerial Judgement; Delphi technique; Work study techniques; Ratio- trend analysis and Mathematical models.
b) Supply Forecasting:- It provides the Human resource manager the estimation of number and type of personnel required. Supply forecasting provides information regarding the ability of organization to procure the required number of personnel. It is concerned with the ability of personnel from within and outside an organization. The supply forecasting includes HR audits; Analysis of internal supply and Analysis of external supply.
HR audits analyses the present employee’s skills and abilities giving detailed summary of the capabilities available in the organization.
Analysis of internal supply involves analysis of Absenteeism, Employee turnover and Productivity; Analysis of inflows and outflows and Movement among the jobs. Analysis of external supply analyses to look for the prospective employees from external sources.
B. Development and Implementation of Manpower plan:- This step refers to converting Manpower plans into action. As a part of implementation, a series of actions like recruitment, selection, training and development, retention are to be planned.
C. Control and review:- This is the final phase of the whole planning process. Regular monitoring or review is essential to reveal the deficiencies in the Planning process so that corrective measure could be taken in time.
The whole process of Manpower planning is diagrammatically represented as follows:-
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Fig 2 :- The Manpower Planning Process
(Source:- Randhawa, G (2012): Human Resource Management. New Delhi: Atlantic pp.30-31)
12. How to plan for a change in LIS professionals:-
Change is must with time. Similarly there is need to be changed for the LIS professionals in their attitude to work and to provide service to their users. These people must have the attitude to adopt latest trends of changes in case of the Information and communication technologies. Every time they must have to enhance their knowledge and skills when there is something new either in case of ICT or in case of the management strategy. For all these there must be a well defined plan how to go for the changes since every now and then there are changes and something new in ICT. In order to make a successful staff performance planning, it is necessary to start with an analysis of future tasks and roles of the library, decide priorities and go through the four steps outlined in the figure below:-
Skills identification, performance planning – in the ideal world
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Preparing library staff for reference and information work in the hybrid library — the need for skills and continuing professional development. Proceedings IFLA, Durban, 2007: Reference and Information Service -Session 151- 23rd August 2007)
It is important for the library manager to consider what will be regarded as core skills of librarians according to the need of their own local context within the planning horizon and to determine what additional skills needed for the professionals. But not even careful planning and good assessment of skills and training gaps might be able to predict and take into account since a number of external factors that might influence the plans over a period of 1-3 years. The external factors such as funding bodies, policy issues, technologies, e- resources, technological infrastructure, the users’ needs and preferences might change much faster than the libraries are able to change their strategies for staff development and set up new programmes for training and education.
13. Conclusion: There is no doubt that capacity building of library staff is the need of the hour to keep in peace with time. As an organization library and information centres have to achieve their goal and also have to achieve the perceived value of their respective institutions. Libraries are service oriented institution and therefore they always have to take care of their users’ satisfaction. Now it is responsibility of the LIS professionals have to justify themselves and their services and have to establish their value to the parent organization. For this they have to develop their level of competencies and have to enhance their knowledge and skills to provide better service and also to satisfy their users. Good efforts have been made at policy making level to develop manpower in this direction. National Mission on Libraries is one of them. National Mission on Libraries will assess as soon as possible the manpower requirements of the country in the area of library and information science management and take necessary steps to meet the country’s requirement through Library and Information Science, education and training. Core competencies are necessary for library staff to serve the clientele in the changing scenario of library arena. Adaptable staff will allow libraries to serve this changing needs and expectations of the users. Library can recruit, hire and train library staff to make them responsive to the new and continuously changing library environment to cope with this phenomenon. NML has decided to initiate need-based training programmes for various categories of library professionals working in public and other libraries. These training/workshops, through well-designed training programmes (including training of trainers), will contribute towards the capacity building of library and information science professionals. The capacity building programme will be conducted in collaboration with those ‘universities and institutes which are already conducting programmes in Library and Information Sciences.
For cite this article use this reference:
Deepa, B. (2017). The factors of competency development among the working library professionals of the university libraries of North East India challenges and realities. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/10603/207716
The term reprography was first introduced as “office printing.” at the First International Congress on Reprography held in Cologne, Germany in 1963. Landau defines it as the art of producing single or multiple copies of documents whether by photographic or other means.” Harrod gives a more comprehensive definition as “the reproduction in facsimile of documents of all kind by any process using light, heat or electric radiation-photocopies, microcopies, blue prints, electro copies, thermo copies, etc; also reproduction by methods of duplicating. Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The development of photocopying services has helped many libraries in their efforts to provide better services to their users ensuring better access to library materials. Students have easy access to photocopying facilities, which enable them to reproduce required material from books and journals.
Photocopying is a form of making copies of books from news papers, and pamphlets and the like. The practice is a very valuable aid to the library users. Photocopying (in broader sense, any kind of machine reproduction) comes under the provisions of copyright and affects the document supply services of libraries and information centers.
Original Research Article:
Khan, M. A. (2013). IPR in India and USA: Its impact on library services. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/10603/40586
Collection development is the systematic building of a library collection based on meaningful data rather than subjective choice. It is the process of assessing the strength and weakness in a collection and then creating a plan to correct the weakness and maintain the strength.
Collection development is defined as the planned purchase of material in various formats to match the instructional and research needs of the campus within the current fiscal environment and resource sharing opportunities. Collection is the heart of a library.
ALA (2013) defined “A term which encompasses a number of activities related to the development of the library collection including the determination and co-ordination of selection policy, assessment of potential user needs and collection use studies, collection evaluation, identification of collection needs, selection of material, planning for resource sharing, collection maintenance and weeding” (p.59 ). Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
According to Encyclopaedia of Library and Information Science (1971), “Library collection is the sum total of library materials, book, manuscript, series, government documents, pamphlets, catalogues, reels, micro cards and microfiche, punch cards, computer tapes, etc. that make up the holding of particular library” (p.260).
Harrods Librarian glossary (2000) defines collection development as “the process of planning a stock acquisition programme not simply to cater for immediate needs but to build a coherent and reliable collection over a number of years, to meet the objectives of the services” (p.163).
Sanchez (2005) defines collection development as a process which assumes that the information needs of the users are satisfied in an economic fashion and under a reasonable period of time using resources which are much internal as external to organization.
Reitz (2007) defines collection development as the process of planning and acquiring a balance collection of library materials over a period of years, based on an ongoing assessment of the information needs of the library clientele, analysis of usage statistics and demographic projection (Kasalu & Ojiambo,2012, p.4).
There are many methods of collection development which are given below:
a. Purchase: Purchase forms the major means of acquiring documents in any library. Strictly speaking, purchasing must be restored to only when no others mean is open to the library. When the required item is not available through other means, then purchases against specific orders becomes the most usual practice for collection development in all the libraries.
b. Gifts or Donations: Gifts or donations are always welcomed in any library collection development. There are many cases where personal collections bequeathed to libraries have become the main stay of collection. Gifts are possible also in the case of individual title that are needed, particularly old and out of print books. Unprized publications that are distributed free of cost makes another important category in gifts.
c. Institutional membership: Institutional membership is another potential resource in collection development. The library may enlist itself as member of learned societies and institutions who published useful materials. Often the membership subscription may cover the right to receive their publication either free of cost or at concessional prices.
d. Deposit system: Deposit system entitles some specially designated libraries to receive free copies of the publications brought out by the government, national and international organisations etc. There are many University libraries and state central library’s enjoying these types of benefits.
e. Exchange: Exchange may be another possible means of collection development of the reading materials. In this case the recipient library or its parent body should have publication of its own to exchange with those of the other institutions. Exchange is also possible between two libraries with spare copies against items needed.
The following objectives are to be reached for fulfil the mission of collection development in the University libraries-
• To formulated good quality, relevant and balance collection that targets to strengthen teaching, support, research & learning by providing databases that are efficient discipline and non traditional.
• Providing a good leadership for team base activity in formulating Policies, planning, managing, Prioritizing, managing resources and in calculated balance collection that satisfy the new develop technologist that are convenient to all users.
• To be informed and responsive to curricular changes for new courses and programs as per the guide line of the University libraries.
• To increase the use of resource through co-operative arrangement with in the libraries at all level.
• Satisfying the needs of users as well as fulfilling the objectives for collection building of parent bodies.
• To provide extensive support for learning, teaching & research personals.
• To provide relevant information without redundancy.
• Review of collection periodically for weeding out.
• To support the core group of users by providing best and useful literature.
The parent institution aims and objectives are framing priorities of collection development. Collection development is a continuous process and it requires good attention of the policy makers. The following factors should be considered the librarian to build up a user friendly collection. These factors are-
The organization/ institution: To identify the organizational objectives that the library is supporting is an important factor. The library collection should be effective and meaningful to achieve the goal of the library as well as to support the activities of the parent institution. The faculties, the curriculum, extra-curricular programmes, the research programme, the teaching methods, courses, student enrolments and advent of technology have a direct impact on the collection development.
The user community: The most important factor in collection development is the user community for whom the collection is developed. In collection development top priority must be given to the requirement of the user community and their changing needs. University library should give top priority to the need of the students, faculty members, research scholars and supporting staff. Collection development policy and programs should be formulated and implemented on the basis of the needs and requirement of all the categories of users.
The existing collection: Existing collection is a relative term. The existing holding refers to the total collection of the library at a given point of time. The collection must be consistently and continuously developed from time to time so that the better the existing holding, more effective will be the future collection development planning. Collection evaluation is also an essential factor to be taken care of, to making a user oriented collection. Evaluation and assessment of all the materials in the holding periodically can be guideline for collection development. Resource sharing & weeding out procedure are also a basic factor to be considered for an effective collection development programme. It helps reduction of cost, better utilization of acquisition fund and wider access to library materials.
Human and financial resources: The human resources with proper professional training are an asset to develop a close contact between the readers and the collection with the aid of different library techniques. But the most important factor for collection development is the financial resources of the library i.e. the library grant. It should be increase keeping in mind of high prices of documents, rapid changes in foreign exchanges rates with high inflation.
For cite this article use this reference:
Kumar, P. A. (2017). Impact of information technology on the collection development in university libraries of Assam: a study. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/10603/180648
For effecting collection development of library resources proper analysis of SWOT (Strength, weakness, Opportunities and Threat) should be done. Collection development policy formulates a plan of actions and information which provides the researcher a well guided path for thinking and decision making. Collection development policy should be referred by the staffs in those subject areas which are to be augmented. The Policy should be a way of communication with the library services users and other people who finance the policies. Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
For a balanced collection development policy need base and updated policy guidelines are very vital. As it would minimize bias and it ensures quality collection. As collection development is a continuous process; a long term policy is needed which can answer the following:
• Who would have final authority for controlling and directing the distribution of fund for purchasing books?
• Who has the responsibility for observing that a policy is setup and regularly implanted.
• Who should participate in the selection?
• What material or resource should be acquired?
According to Evans (1987), a policy document should have-
(i) A brief general description of the community to be served,
(ii) Identification of specific clientele to be served,
(iii) a general statement regarding the parameters of collection, such as specific subject field and type of formats that the library will acquire,
(iv) The statement on general limitation and priorities that will determine how the collection will be developed, and
(v) Keeping in mind the library’s role in co-operative development and networking the policy should make it clear as to whether the basic philosophy is self-sufficiency or co-operation.
The Primary function of the University libraries is collection development. Dr. S R Ranganathan’s (1931) five laws of library science have profound implication for policies of collection development. They are:
• Providing value added services and proper collection materials the collection development policies are required.
• The purpose of collection development policies is to provide framework for acquisition, resource allocation with drawl and language planning of collection for user’s interest.
• Collection development policy is the per-requisite of the every library irrespective of its size such as this policy is the expanded version of the purpose and mission of library.
• Deciding whether to acquire or reject an item by the staff the collection development policies places an important role. For making a consistent and qualitative decision the proper guideline of the policy can be followed.
• The policy serves as a source of reinforcement when the item is challenged by other patrons.
The following are the components of collection development-
Organizational objectives: The nature of the organization, objectives, function and its purpose at preliminary level.
Users: Review the needs of the users and determine the important area of concern, project undertaken.
Information resources: Covering general aspect as well as the potential needs of the users.
Levels of collection: The Collection is needed to fulfill the current & future needs of the researcher and the experts as well as for the organization.
Subject coverage: The subject covered must be up to the core and updated. The resource material collected depends on the needs as well as the priorities or can be arranged by sharing data with similar organization.
Type of information sources: Provide information of the literature, Publisher in the area of the secondary information sources. The maximum access of information is to be provided to users rather than the owning of the resources.
Budget: The budget must be properly allocated to University libraries as per the users.
Form: The material can be acquired in the forms of print, non-print and in digital pattern but it should be a cost effective procurement,
Service provided: The library services can be provided from organizations collection and different institution but it needs qualitative acquisition of resources.
Policies: For preservation of the resources qualitative collection development policies should be formulated.
For cite this article use this reference:
Kumar, P. A. (2017). Impact of information technology on the collection development in university libraries of Assam: a study. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/10603/180648
Evans (1995) defines collection development as the “process of meeting the information needs of the people (a service population) in a timely and economic manner using information resources locally held as well as from other organizations” (p.17). He states that collection development is a six component process. These components are:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Figure: Collection development process (Evans, 1995)
Evans (1995) analysed these six processes of library collection development in the above figure-
• Analysis of the information needs of the users.
• Formulation and implementation of selection policy to suit the objectives of the library.
• Material selection.
• Acquisition programmes to build-up a balance collection.
• Weeding out programmes.
• Collection evaluation.
While acquiring documents there are many factoring which the librarian keeps in mind like information overload or information explosion, increasing users’ demands due to specialization, shrinking & limited library budget, increase in the price of resources, change in demand of users to information & access based services from collection based services, increasing uses of electronic documents.
The collection development activity operates at three levels. The financial and administrative power would rest with highest executive authority which may be repressed by a library authority committee. The second level is the book selection committee consisting of subject specialist and third level constitutes the librarian and staff.
The norms and standards regarding collection development are the following:
• Proposition of the distribution of funds to books, journals and other reading materials.
• Optimum size of collection.
• Different types of reading materials procurement procedure.
Materials are collected in print, paper back and hard back and electronic formats. The library should purchase the materials in the format which is most useful or acceptable to the readers. The considerable factor includes ease of use, reliability, space and equipment, cost of document and demand.
Generally the collection developments of University libraries have two structural patterns, namely centralized and decentralized system. In the centralized system the central library take the full responsibility of collection development of a balanced collection. On the other hand in the decentralized pattern the development of a subject collection the responsibility is entrusted to the academic department.
Users’ expectation differs from one environment to another environment, institutional programs, activities, vision and specialization. The expectations of users in libraries generally are:
• The collection of library should be well organized.
• There should be clear directions and stack guide.
• Speedy delivery service.
• Good communication facilities.
• Continuous interaction.
• Continual improvement.
• Access and delivery of electronic resources.
• Web based initiatives and resources.
• Display and demonstration of information about staff.
• Users complains system.
• Effective & efficient workflow.
• Information literacy.
• Disaster management.
For cite this article use this reference:
Kumar, P. A. (2017). Impact of information technology on the collection development in university libraries of Assam: a study. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/10603/180648
There has always been confusion about the distinction between ‘subject cataloguing’ and ‘subject indexing‘. Basically, cataloguing is the process of creating bibliographic description of a document as a whole entity, and subject cataloguing and classification assign subject labels which together descnbe the overall topic of the document. Indexing involves delving into a document for analysing its contents at a much deeper level to provide access to many of the concepts contained within it at greater depth. Although most articles in a periodical issue and many books are listed under only one or two subject headings, a back-of-the-book index contains hundreds of subject terms associated with the content of an individual book.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Subject cataloguing usually refers to the assignment of subject headings to represent the overall contents of whole documents (e.g. books, reports, periodicals, etc.) within the catalogue of a library. Subject indexing is a term used more loosely; it may refer to the representation of the subject matter of the parts of whole documents as in the case of a back-of-the-book subject index. Thus, a library may enter a book under the subject heading ‘noses’ in its catalogue to indicate its overall subject matter, the detailed contents of the book are only revealed by the back-of-the-book subject index. This distinction between the terms ‘subject cataloguing’ and ‘subject indexing’, one referring to complete bibliographic items and other to parts of them, is artificial, misleading, and inconsistent. The process by which the subject matter of documents is represented in databases-printed or electronic form-is almost referred to as ‘subject indexing’, whether overall documents or their parts are discussed. Thus, the subject index might refer to the representation of the content of the complete books or complete technical reports as well as to the parts of documents (e.g. chapters in books, papers within the periodicals or conference proceedings, etc.). On the other hand, libraries may choose to represent parts of books (e.g. chapters or papers) within the catalogue which is usually referred to as analytical cataloguing.
The situation is even more confusing when the term classification is considered. The term classification refers to the process of assigning class numbers, drawn from a given classification scheme, to documents, especially for the purpose of arranging these items on the shelves of the libraries, in catalogues, etc. But the subject catalogue of a library can be either alphabetically based (in an alphabetical subject catalogue or dictionary catalogue) or arranged according to the sequence of a classification scheme (in a classified catalogue). Suppose a librarian picks up a book and decides that it is about ‘banking’. He or she might assign the subject heading Banking to this document. Alternatively, the Dewey Decimal classification number 332.1 may be assigned to it. Many people would refer to the first operation as subject cataloguing and to the second as classification. These terminological distinctions are quite meaningless and only serve to create confusion due to failure to understand the distinction between the conceptual analysis and translation stage in indexing. In short, subject indexing is conceptually identical to subject cataloguing. Its process involves classification, forming classes of objects on the basis of their subject matter and representing them either in the verbal plane (by using a readymade list of subject headings or a thesaurus) or in the notational plane (by using a scheme of classification). In this Unit, the term subject indexing or simply indexing is used as a matter of convenience to refer to all activities of subject cataloguing.
Article Collected From:
Sarkhel, J. (2017). Unit-9 Basics of Subject Indexing. Retrieved from http://egyankosh.ac.in/handle/123456789/35769
(Professor of Library & Information Science, University of Kalyani, India)
1.1 Introduction:
Indexing language (IL) is an artificial language made up of expressions connecting several kernel terms and adopted to the requirements of indexing. The function of an IL is to do whatever a natural language (NL) does and in addition organize the semantic content through a different expression providing a point of access to the seekers of information. An IL is a system for naming subjects and has controlled vocabulary. The vocabulary of an IL may be verbal or coded. A classification scheme uses coded vocabulary in the form of notation and authority lists uses verbal vocabulary. It is a prerequisite to understanding the features of the language used for the representation of the subject content of the documents in terms of their linguistics structures and functions for the purpose of studying the structure of indexing language. Thus, there are areas of linguistics which are of common interest to information scientists.
1.2 Meaning and Scope of Indexing Language:
A language is a code through which messages are transmitted. It is a communication medium based on the association of thoughts/ideas. In terms of linguistics, all spoken languages (i.e. natural language) consist of three basic elements: vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Vocabulary is a list of terms/words used in a particular natural language. Syntax comprises a grammatical structure or a set of rules that govern the sequence of occurrence of terms/words in a sentence. Semantics refers to the study of what meaning is and how it operates. It is, in other words, a systematic study of how meaning is structured, expressed and understood in the use of a language. The syntax is used to resolve word meaning through the determination of context.
Information systems are concerned with the communication of information about the documents to the potential users of those documents. The means of communication are the subject indexing language or simply an indexing language. An IL is a system for naming subjects of the records of information (i.e. document). It is an artificial language made up of expressions connecting several kernel terms/notations. The function of an IL is to do whatever an NL does and in addition organize the semantic content through a different expression providing a point of access to the seekers of information. Thesauri, the readymade lists of subject headings and classification schemes are the examples of subject indexing languages.
1.3 Natural Language (NL) versus Indexing Language:
If the terms that appear in the documents are used without required modifications, it is a NL. Since the usage of a NL leads to many problems, such as those arising from the use of different words by different authors to denote the same idea, an alternate to NL is, to use artificial language adapted to the specific needs. The artificial language uses concept indexing rather than term indexing. The terms are representatives of a NL used by authors. The concepts imbibe standard description established in IL. The NL is flexible and advantageous to authors to use different terms to denote the same concept. The indexer, who is more concerned with the ideas conveyed rather than the language niceties, depends upon artificial language. The differences between the natural language and indexing language are furnished below:
Natural Language
Indexing Language
A natural language is a set of codes and their admissible expression used for communication of ideas in speech and writing in our day to day life.
An indexing language is a set of codes and their admissible expression used for representing the content of the documents as well as queries of the users.
A natural language is “natural” in the sense that it grows freely in the lips of human being, totally free from any control whatever.
An indexing language is “artificial” in the sense that it may depend upon the vocabulary of a natural language, though not always, but its syntax, semantics, and orthography would be different from the natural language.
A natural language is developed for communication of ideas among human beings in their day to day life.
Indexing language is developed and used for a special purpose, i.e. for the representation of the thought content of the documents as well as queries of the users.
A natural language is a free language and there is no control of synonyms and homographs. One concept may be denoted by more than one term. There is no standardization of terms or words. Anybody can use any words/terms to express her his/ ideas.
An indexing language is a controlled language. There is a restriction in using the words/terms in indexing language. Synonyms and homographs are controlled. There is standardization of terms/words. One concept is denoted by only one term.
Natural language provides auxiliaries like prepositions, conjunctions, etc. to bring out the correct meaning of the sentence.
Such auxiliaries are not available in an indexing language. The order of terms according to the syntactical rules of an indexing language along with the relational symbols like role operators or indicator digits bring the correct meaning of a subject heading.
1.4 Structure of Indexing Language:
Like natural language, an indexing language consists of three elements: (a) Vocabulary (not free vocabulary, but controlled vocabulary), (b) Syntax, and (c) Semantics. All the structured indexing languages are based upon careful subject analysis. The following figure presents the structure of an indexing language:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
1.4.1 Controlled Vocabulary: An indexing language operates with a controlled vocabulary. An IL having controlled vocabulary attempting to indicate the relationship between terms in the index vocabulary is systematically structured. The vocabulary of an IL is either verbal or coded. Subject heading lists and thesauri come within the purview ofverbal controlled vocabulary. A classification scheme employs coded vocabulary in the form of its notation. Thus, for example in Colon Classification (CC) Schedule ‘Indian History’ is rendered as V44. In Sear’s List of Subject Headings which employs verbal vocabulary, it is rendered as: India – History. There are also controlled vocabularies like Thesaurofacet, Classaurus, etc., which possess both the characteristics verbal as well as coded controlled vocabularies. In any case, the selection of terms to be used in each discipline is primary and coding is done at a later stage. The need, objectives, methods of vocabulary control, etc. are discussed in detail in another post.
1.4.2 Syntax: The etymological meaning of syntax is ‘putting things together in an orderly manner’. In the context of an indexing language, syntax refers to a set of rules or grammar which governs the sequence of words in a subject heading, or notations in a classification number.
Most of the subjects treated even in modern macro documents are of compound nature. This means that the name of a subject can no longer be represented by a single word or term. When a number of terms have to be used in representing the subject coextensively, the syntax is necessary to put the terms in a most helpful and known searchable order. In other words, we can say that syntax of an indexing language provides a pattern of the relationship which we recognize between the terms used in the system, i.e. between the terms in the index vocabulary or controlled vocabulary. This recognition is based on a careful subject analysis which is basic to the indexing language.
The order of terms according to the rules of syntax of an indexing language assumes greater importance of presenting the correct meaning of a subject heading. Apart from the order of terms prescribed by its rules of syntax, it becomes necessary, at times, to use relational symbols or indicator digits to bring out the correct relations between terms. In this connection, it is to be pointed out here that natural language provides auxiliaries like prepositions, conjunctions, etc. to bring out the correct meaning of the sentence. But in an indexing language, such auxiliaries are not available and hence, the correct meaning of a subject heading has to be expressed largely through the order of terms along with the relational symbols like role operators or indicator digits. The syntactical relationship is documented dependent relationship.
1.4.3 Semantics: As stated earlier, semantics refers to the systematic study of how meaning is structured, expressed and understood in the use of an indexing language. Various types of semantic relationships are evident in an indexing language. These relationships include equivalence relationships, hierarchical relationships, and associative relationships. Meaning of the term can be derived from its hierarchy. The semantic relationship is documented independent relationship. The syntactical rules of an indexing language are also used to resolve the meaning of the term in a subject heading (consisting of a string of terms) through the determination of context.
1.5 Attributes of an Indexing Language:
Indexing language is designed for a special purpose. It serves three purposes-representing subject content of documents, organizing a searchable file, and representing subject content of the queries of the users while searching the index file. A positive result in searching is achieved only when the content representation of the document by the indexer and that of the queries by the searcher match. This matching of the file is very much dependent on the organization of the index file in a predetermined order and the awareness of the users of it. Various attributes of an indexing language like vocabulary control, concept coordination, multiple access, syndetic devices, relation manifestation, and structural presentation play very important roles in the successful organization of the index file and subsequent matching of the index and queries of the users.
1.5.1 Vocabulary Control: The vocabulary of an indexing language is controlled for standardization ofterms-i.e. one concept should be denoted by only one term. This is done by controlling synonyms, near-synonyms and word forms, and by distinguishing among homographs.
1.5.2 Concept Coordination: The contents of most of the documents of present days cannot be represented by only one term. Because of the use of multiple terms and multiple relationships among terms to represent the content of the document it has become imperative to make available standard guidelines for the coordination of concepts dented by the terms. One of the essential components of an indexing language, i.e. syntax governs the sequence of words in a subject proposition. The natural language provides auxiliaries like prepositions, conjunctions, etc. among the substantive words to bring out the correct meaning of the sentence. But such auxiliaries are not available in an indexing language. The correct meaning of a subject is expressed mainly through the order of terms according to the rules of syntax, sometimes along with the relational symbols like role operators or indicator digits of an indexing language. These rules of syntax will vary from one indexing language to another. Coordination of concepts is carried out by the indexer at the time of indexing (i.e. at input stage) in pre-coordinate indexing and by the searcher at the time searching (i.e. at output stage) in post-coordinate indexing.
1.5.3 Multiple Access: The syntactical rules of the given indexing language help us to determine the order of significance in a linear representation of the subject of a document. It provides only single access in the searchable index file. Rigidity ofthe significance order may not meet the approaches ofall the users ofthe index file. In order to satisfy the approaches of all the users, indexing languages have introduced the mechanism for multiple index entries by rotating or cycling ofthe component terms representing the subject ofthe document. The rotation is carried out in such a way that each of the component terms gets access position as a lead term in the index entries. Each lead term is followed by other component terms in order to maintain the context and correct meaning ofthe subject proposition. The provision of a mechanism for multiple index entries by rotating or cycling of the component terms is a special feature of indexing language. However, it has been observed that even the acceptance of this multiple access mechanism covers only a fraction ofthe possible number ofthe total permutations, which in turn, results into the failure ofthe index file to provide a particular pattern of combinations which the user is looking for. Consequently, a large portion of probable approach points is left uncovered.
1.5.4 Syndetic Device: Syndetic device is an organizational framework in which related subjects are linked together in an underlying classificatory structure.
• Cross References: Related and equivalent subjects are linked to each other by a network of references via connecting terms such as See also and See / USE / OF respectively.
• Inversion of Headings: The strict adherence to the natural language order of terms in a subject heading would often lead to headings in which the first word is not the most significant. In such a situation natural language order of terms is inverted in a subject heading.
1.5.5 Relation Manifestations: The range of an indexing language is not simply a matter ofvocabulary. Provision for rules of syntax is to be made for the expression of relationships between the terms comprising the vocabulary. These relationships, as conceived by a team lead by J. C. Gardin during the SYNTOL (Syntagmatic Organization Language) programme for the development of a meta-language as a common ground between different information retrieval systems in the 1960s, are of two kinds: Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic relations.
• Paradigmatic relationship: Paradigmatic relations also called semantic or generic relations, usually find expression in the organization of the vocabulary itself. Thus in classification schedules, it is through the successive degrees of subordination that such relations are made explicit. In the readymade lists of subject headings or thesauri, the relationships are expressed through the manifestation of hierarchical relationships through the relationship indicators BT and NT. A paradigmatic relationship is documented independent relationships because this relationship is established without any reference to a document.
• Syntagmatic relationship: In addition to the expression of paradigmatic relationships, rules and facilities are provided for the coordination of terms from the vocabulary in order to express more complex meanings. Syntagmatic relationships, also called syntactical relationships are achieved by means of syntactical rules of the given indexing language. Two major syntactic devices very much common in indexing languages are the use of a word or teen order and relators or linking mechanisms. Kaiser’s Thing-Process, Ranganathan’s PMEST, Coates’s Thing-Material-Action and Relationship Table are some of the examples of formulae for determining term order and thus standardizing and controlling syntax. A major principle underlying term order is significance. Component order of a compound subject heading can be expressed in more than one way. The question of order can be answered by reference to significance-that is, by an analysis of the relative importance to the searcher of the concepts concerned. The result of such analysis is to bring into prominence key concepts. Syntagmatic relationships are document dependent relationships because these relationships are established with reference to the concepts associated with the content of a given document. As for example, a document entitled “Social aspects of literacy among rural women in India” will call for the combination of concepts from Sociology, Education and Geography. They represent the syntagmatic relation in the context of this specific document and an indexing language must have the mechanism to represent these concepts in a subject heading.
1.5.6 Structural Presentation: The basic objective of an indexing language is to provide a subject approach to the contents of documents to the users. It is generally agreed that a user-oriented approach may not be confined to the specific subject only. A user who starts a search for looking a specific subject ‘Conservation of tiger’ may avoid to notice a document on `Conservation of wildlife’ which may contain equally valuable information on `Conservation of tiger’ because he believes that the more specific subject `conservation of tiger’ will not be covered in the document ‘Conservation of wildlife’. Similarly, ‘Conservation of the tiger’ may contain equally valuable information on the `Conservation of wildlife’. Thus it appears that the broader, as well as narrower subjects, may help the user even with a specific search. This situation calls for structuring the indexing language in such a systematic manner that the semantic network of concepts and the relationship between concepts are displayed in it. All the indexing languages display such relationships in one way or other and thus all of them are structured. A classification scheme displays such relationship by notation whereas a verbal indexing language like a readymade list of subject headings and thesaurus display such relationship by the relationship indicators BT and NT.
1.6 Types of Indexing Languages:
1.6.1 Classification Schemes: It has already been mentioned in sub-section 1.4. 1 of this Unit that controlled vocabulary of an IL is of two types: verbal and coded vocabularies. A classification scheme employs coded vocabulary in the form of its notation. Libraries have long been using notational schemes of library classification to organize information resources on the shelves, and to provide means for locating information resources in the bibliographical tools-such as catalogues, bibliographies, abstracting and indexing documents. We know that classification is a mental process of a grouping of entities in order of their degree of likeness and separating entities according to their degree of unlikeness. All class designations of subjects are the names of subjects irrespective of the fact that whether they are in terms of class numbers or verbal specifications. The assignment of class designation in the notational plane is called class number, and the preparation of tools to be used for this purpose is classification schemes. Modern classification schemes such as Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), Library of Congress (LC) Classification, Colon Classification (CC), etc. were devised several decades ago or more. Although over the years they have been modified and improved, their main objectives remain unchanged. The Web version of DDC, 22nd edition, i.e. WebDewey includes all updates since its publication in 2003 plus supplemental data. The most important feature of WebDewey is that it gives additional points of access by combining DDC numbers and Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). It also gives access to many pre-built numbers, especially in the Literature class which are not available in the print version Although classification schemes were mainly designed for organizing bibliographic items, many researchers have also used classification schemes to organize information resources on the Web.
1.6.2 Subject Heading Lists: Subject heading has been defined as a word or group of words (phrase) indicating a subject under which all materials dealing with the same theme is entered in a catalogue or bibliography, or is arranged in a file. A vocabulary control device depends on a master list of words/terms that can be assigned to documents. Such a master list of terms is referred to as a list of subject headings. A subject heading list is alphabetical list terms and phrases, with appropriate cross-references and notes, that can be used as a source of subject headings in order to represent the subject content of a document. A list of other semantically related terms or phrases is displayed under each term or phrase. A printed list of subject headings incorporates the thought and experience of many librarians of various types of libraries.
General Principles
The rules for subject headings in a dictionary catalogue were formulated by Charles Ammi Cutter in 1876 in his ‘Rules fora Dictionary Catalog’. The impact of Cutter’s principles on construction and maintenance of subject headings is still discernible today. Both, the LCSH and the SLSH adopted the Cutter’s principles in assigning subject headings for a document. The general principles that guide the indexers in the choice and rendering of subject headings from the standard lists of subject headings are discussed in the ‘following sub-sections.
• Specificity: The principles of specific and direct entry requires that a document be assigned directly under the most specific subject heading that accurately and precisely represents its subject content. If a document is about penguins, it should be entered directly under the most specific heading ‘Penguins’, not under the heading ‘Birds’ or even under ‘Water Birds’ which includes Penguins’. If the name of a specific subject is not available, a broader heading is the most specific authorized heading in the hierarchy that covers the content of the work. In many cases, several headings may be assigned in order to cover different aspects of a subject.
• Common Usage: This principle states that the word(s) used to express a subject must represent common usage. There may be problems in the selection of subject headings when the same concept is expressed by two or more terms. According to this principle, subject headings are to be chosen to keep in mind the needs of the users who are likely to use the index file. If a choice between spellings is made for dialectal reasons (for example, between American and British English), the most widely accepted spelling ofwords, based on users warrant, should be adopted. If a popular and a scientific name refer to the same concept, the form most likely to be sought by the users shouldbe chosen. After deciding on the name ofheading, a cross-reference should be made from the non-preferred to the preferred form.
• Uniformity: The principle ofuniform heading is adopted in order to bring consistency in the use of subject headings. A subject heading list has to be very precise and exact in order to ensure that each concept is represented by a single preferred term. Both synonyms and homographs are to be controlled. It should list the other synonyms and variants as non-preferred terms with USE references to the preferred term. One uniform term must be selected from several synonyms and other variants, and this term must be applied consistently to all documents on the topic. If several meanings are attached to one term (e.g, Crane as a bird / Crane as lifting equipment) that term must be qualified so that it will be clear to the users for which the meaning is intended.
• Consistent and Current Terminology: The principle states that the term(s) chosen as subject headings should be both consistent and current as has already been said regarding the justifications for uniform headings. By principle, common usage prevails when there is a problem of choices among synonymous terms and other variants. Changes in usage also present many practical difficulties. A term chosen on the basis of common usage may become obsolete with the passage of time. Subsequently, a list of subject headings may incorporate current terminology as long as entries pose a problem because of the large number of entries listed under the existing subject headings. In such a situation a subject authority file is to be maintained. Once a heading is changed, every record that was linked to the old heading can be linked to the new heading and this decision is recorded in the subject authority file.
• Form Heading: Form headings refer to those words or phrases which represent the literary or artistic form (e.g., Essays, Poetry, Fiction, etc.). These are the words or phrases that follow a subject heading and indicated by a dash. These words or phrases are used to make the subject more specific. Assignment of form headings to individual works as well as to collections and materials about the form enables the libraries to provide access to these kinds of materials to the users. Apart from literary works themselves, there are also many kinds of library materials about literary forms that require subject headings. For a document on how to write an essay, the heading “Essay” represents a subject. A topical subject heading and a form headings can be distinguished by using the singular form for the topical subject heading and plural for the form heading (e.g., Short story, Short stories). In addition to the literary form headings, there are some other form headings that are determined by the general format and purpose of the documents, such as Almanacs, Encyclopaedias, Dictionaries, and Gazetteers.
• Cross Reference: Cross-references direct the user from term/phrase not used as headings to the term/ phrase that is used, and from broader and related topics to the one chosen to represent a given subject. Three types of cross-references are used in the subject headings structure. These are discussed below:
• See (or USE) references: These references guide users from terms that are not used as headings to the authorized headings for the subject in question. ‘See’ or ‘USE’ references ensure that inspite of different names for (or different forms of the name of) a given subject a user shall still be able to locate materials on it.
• See also (including BT, NT, and RT) references: These references guide users to the headings that are related either hierarchically or associatively and are used as entries in the index file. By connecting related headings, the ‘see also’ (RT, for the related term) references draw the user’s attention to material related to his interest. By linking hierarchically related headings, ‘see also’ (BT, for broader term; NT, for narrower term) references directs the users to search specific deviations or aspects of his subject of interest.
• General references: General references direct the users to a group or category of headings instead of individual headings. It is sometimes called a ‘blanket reference’. The provision of general references in the standard list of subject headings obviates the need to make long lists of specific references and thus ensure economy of space.
Subject Authority File:
A subject authority file consisting of subject authority records ensures uniformity and consistency in subject heading terminology and cross-references. The process of creating subject authority records and maintaining subject authority file is called subject authority control. Subject authority control is exercised at two levels: central and local. At the central level, a central agency (e.g. Library ofCongress) maintains the subject authority file (in card or machine-readable form) or subject heading list (in print form) and makes changes to existing headings and cross-references as well as adding new ones. At the local level, a library creates local subject authority records only for headings not yet appeared as established headings in a subject heading list along with needed maintenance information. Thus, the subject authority control at the local level includes correcting erroneous headings and cross-references, updating obsolete headings, and adding or revising cross-references necessitated by new headings. ALA Glossary has defined the subject authority file as “A set of records indicating the authorized forms of terms used as subject headings in a particular set of bibliographic records; the references made to and from the authorized forms; and the information used, and its sources, in the establishment of the headings and the determination of the references to be made”. (ALAGlossary of library and Information Science. Chicago: American Library Association, 1983, p.220). This definition suggests that a subject authority record should contain the following items of information: (a) established subject heading; (b) scope notes, if any, (c) cross-references made from it to other headings; and (d) sources or authorities on which the decision on the form of heading was based. A subject authority record is made when subject headings are established and used for the first time.
The functions of a subject authority file are discussed below:
• Indexing: The subject authority file serves as the source of indexing vocabulary and as the means of verifying or validating headings assigned to individual indexing records. It helps to ensure that: a) the same heading is assigned to all works on the same subject, b) each heading represents only that particular subject, and c) all headings assigned to indexing records conform to the established forms.
• Maintenance: Necessary adjustments to indexing records are needed to be added from time to time as a result of changes in the indexing vocabulary. When existing subject headings are revised or new headings are added; cross-references are often affected and should be adjusted. The subject authority file reflects the most current status ofheadings and cross-references and thus, serves as the source for verification and validation of subject headings as to the indexing records. It is also useful when a library converts its manual form to the online mode and wishes to have previously existing records reflect current practice.
• Retrieval: Subject authority file helps the users in two ways: (1) subject headings displayed in the subject authority file show the user the terminology and form of subject access points in the index file; and (2) the cross-references guide the users to related headings when user’s input terms fail to retrieve useful records.
The term thesaurus has been derived from Greek and Latin words which mean ‘a treasury’ and it has been used for several centuries to mean a lexicon or treasury of words. Modern usage may be said to date from 1852, when the first edition of Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases was published by Peter Mark Roget. A thesaurus (plural: thesauri) with which we are concerned is meant for information retrieval and is used as a valuable vocabulary control device for indexing and searching in a specific subject area. The journey of the thesaurus from the linguistic domain to information retrieval is evident from the following timeline:
1736: The term ‘thesaurus’ first appeared in OED. It came from the Greek word `thesaurus’ which means ‘Treasury or storehouse of knowledge’.
1852: Appeared Peter Mark Roget’s Thesaurus. It was a linguistic thesaurus showing the word(s) by which the given idea most fitly and aptly expressed, i.e. Classification of ideas.
1957: Dorking Conference. Miss Helen Brownson first brought the idea of `thesaurus’ in terms if IR through a paper presented there.
1959: H P Luhn gave the idea of the application of thesaurus in IR.
1969: The first thesaurus used in IR system was developed by Do Pont in USA.
Definition:
There are many different definitions of thesauri, varying from quite modest definitions that focus on the relations between words without stating which kinds of relations that are meant, to such definitions that state more exactly which relations that are concerned. The definition of Thesaurus provided by World Science Information System of UNESCO (known as UNISIST) on the basis of its function and structure seems to be most comprehensive to understand the meaning and scope of the thesaurus:
“In terms of function, a thesaurus is a terminological control device used in translating from the natural language of documents, indexers or users into a more constrained `system language’ (documentation language, information language)”. “In terms of structure, a thesaurus is a controlled and dynamic vocabulary of semantically and generically related terms which covers a specific domain of knowledge”.
Purpose:
A thesaurus is a semantic network of terms. Its purposes are
a) To provide a map of a given field of knowledge, how concepts or ideas about concepts are related to one another, which helps an indexer or a searcher to understand the structure of the field.
b) To provide a standard vocabulary for a given subject field which will ensure that indexers are consistent when they are making index entries to information storage and retrieval system.
c) To provide a system of references between terms which will ensure that only one term from a set of synonyms is used for indexing one concept, and that indexers and searchers are told which of the set is the one chosen; and to provide guide to terms which are related to any index term in other ways, either by classification structure or otherwise in the literature.
d) To provide a guide for users of the system so that they choose the correct term for a subject search; this stresses the importance of cross-references. If an indexer uses more than one synonym in the same index—for example, “abroad”, “foreign” and “overseas”—then documents are liable to be indexed haphazardly under all of these; a searcher who chooses one and finds documents indexed there will assume that he has found the correct term and will stop his search without knowing that there are other useful documents indexed under the other synonyms.
e) To locate a new concept in a scheme of relationships with existing concepts in a way which makes sense to users of the system.
f) To provide classified hierarchies so that a search can be broadened and narrowed systematically if the first choice of search term produces either too few or too many references to the materials in the store.
g) A desirable purpose, but one which it would be premature to say is being achieved, is to provide a means by which the use of terms in a given subject field may be standardized.
Basic Thesaural Relationships:
Basic thesaural relationships or the semantic relationships in a thesaurus refer to two types of relationships: (1) Hierarchical Relationship; (2) and Non-Hierarchical Relationship. The following figure shows the different types ofrelationships displayed in a thesaurus.
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1. Hierarchical Relationship Hierarchical relationships are based on degrees or levels of superordination and subordination, where the superordinate term represents a class or a whole, and subordinate terms refer to its members or parts. This relationship is of four types: Genus-Species (Generic) relationship, Whole-Part relationship, Instance relationship, and Poly-hierarchical relationship.
Reciprocity in the hierarchical relationships is expressed by the relationship indicators: BT (Broader Term), ie. a label for the superordinate (parent) term; and NT (Narrower Term), i.e. a label for the subordinate (child) term.
• Genus-Species (Generic) Relationship links genus and species and represents the basis of the scientific taxonomic system. As for example
Examples of Hierarchical relationship indicator (BT and NT),
Mammals
BT Vertebrates
Vertebrates
NT Mammals
• Whole-Part Relationship covers situations in which one concept is inherently included in another, regardless of context, so that the terms can be organized into logical hierarchies, with the whole treated as a broader term. As for example:
Central nervous system
NT Spinal cord
Spinal cord
BT Central nervous system
• Instance Relationship identifies the link between a general category of things or events, expressed by a common noun, and an individual instance of that category, often a proper name. As for examples:
Mountain regions
NT Himalayas
Himalayas
BT Mountain regions
• Polyhierarchical Relationship occurs when some concepts belong, on logical grounds, to more than one category. In the following example, the term pianos are assigned to subordinate positions on the basis of its generic relationship to two broader terms-in other words, pianos would be an NT to both stringed instruments and wind instruments.
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2. Non-Hierarchical Relationship: Relationship between terms other than hierarchical is called Non-hierarchical relationship, which may further be grouped as Equivalence (or Preferential) Relationship and Associative Relationship.
a. Equivalence (or Preferential) Relationship refers to the relationship between preferred and non-preferred terms in which each term is regarded as referring to the same concept. When the same concept can be expressed by two or more terms, one of these is selected as the preferred term. A cross-reference to the preferred term should be made from any “equivalent” entry term. Reciprocity in the equivalence relationships is expressed by the relationship indicators: USE, which leads from a non-preferred (entry) term to the preferred term, and UF or USED FOR, which leads from the preferred entry term to the non-preferred term(s).
Four basic types of equivalence relationship are evident: (a) Synonyms; (b) Lexical variants; (c) near-synonyms; and (d) Generic posting.
• Synonyms: Synonymy occurs when a concept can be represented by multiple terms having the same or similar meanings. A thesaurus compensates for the problems caused by synonymy by ensuring that each concept is represented by a single preferred term. It lists other synonyms and variants as non-preferred terms with USE references to the preferred term.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.• Lexical variants: Lexical variants differ from synonyms in that synonyms are different terms for the same concept, while lexical variants are different word forms for the same expression. These forms may derive from spelling or grammatical variation or from abbreviated formats. The following examples indicate the preferred grammatical forms of terms.
b. Nouns and Noun Phrases: The grammatical form of a term should be a noun or noun phrase. Nouns used as a team are divided into two categories: Count nouns and Noncount (mass) nouns. Count Nouns are names of objects or concepts that are subject to the question “How many?” but not “How much?” These should normally be expressed as plurals. For examples: books, penguins, singers, vertebrates, windows, etc. Mass (noncount) nouns are names of materials or substances that are subject to the question “How much?” but not “How many?” These should be expressed in the singular. Some examples of Singular mass nouns are: milk, water, etc.
Where the singular and plural forms of a term represent different concepts, separate terms for each are entered in the thesaurus. The distinction should be indicated by a qualifier. Some examples are: Bridge (game) / Bridges (structures); Damage (injury) / Damages (law); Wood (material) / Woods (forested areas). Noun phrases are compound terms that are established as preferred terms if they represent a single concept.
Noun phrases occur in two forms: (a) Adjectival noun phrases like Red rose, Marine birds, Cold fusion, Historical drama, etc.; and (b) Prepositional noun phrases like Plaster of Paris, Prisoners of war, Hospitals for children, etc.
c. Adjectives: Adjectives and adjectival phrases used alone are established as terms in a thesaurus under certain special circumstances. Single adjectives are used in a “nominal” way; that is, the noun is obvious from the context or the adjective is used to describe an attribute of the content object other than topics, such as colour or size. For examples: small, medium, large, blue, green, red, yellow, etc.
As an alternative to the creation of multiple compound terms, adjectives may appear as separate terms when designed to be pre-coordinated in indexing or post coordinated in searching. They should generally not be assigned as indexing terms in isolation. Given the possibility of false coordination in searching (e.g., the linking of an adjective with the wrong noun), adjectival terms should be used sparingly. Some examples of the use of adjectives as terms in pre- and post coordination are: Airborne / Airborne troops; Offshore / Offshore drilling; Mobile / Mobile homes, etc.
Certain noun phrases may be used to modify other nouns, e.g., high frequency can modify the noun waves.
Adjectives may be used alone in general cross-references to direct the user to or from a group of terms beginning with a corresponding noun, e.g., “cardiac . . . see also the terms beginning with heart.”An example of a reference in the opposite direction (noun to adjective) is: “France see also the terms beginning with French (French art, French language, French literature, French wines).”
d. Adverbs: Adverbs such as “very” or “highly” should not be used alone as terms. A phrase beginning with such an adverb may be accepted as a term only when it has acquired a specialized meaning within a domain. Some examples of adverbial phrases are: very high frequency, very large scale integration, very low-density lipoproteins, etc.
e. Abbreviations: Abbreviations are selected as preferred terms only when they have become so well established that the full form of the term or proper name is rarely used, e.g. AIDS rather than Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; Lasers rather than Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation; UNESCO rather than United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization; etc. The full form of terms are selected as preferred terms when the abbreviated form is not widely used and generally understood, e.g. Automated teller machine rather than ATM; Prisoners of war rather than POW; etc. Cross-references should be made from the non-preferred forms to the preferred form.
e. Popular and Scientific Names: If a popular and a scientific name refer to the same concept, the form most likely to be sought by the users of the thesaurus should be chosen as the preferred term. For example, Penguins is chosen as the preferred term in a nontechnical thesaurus with a cross-reference from the scientific equivalent, Sphenisciformes. However, Sphenisciformes is selected as the preferred term in a zoological thesaurus with a cross-reference from the popular name, Penguins.
• Near-synonyms: Near-synonyms are terms whose meanings are generally regarded as different, but which are treated as equivalents for the purposes of a controlled vocabulary. The extent to which terms are treated as near-synonyms depends in large measure upon the domain covered by the controlled vocabulary and its size. Near-synonyms may include antonyms or represent points on a continuum. As for examples, Seawater/saltwater [variant terms]; Smoothness/ roughness [antonyms].
• Generic Posting: It is a technique in which the name of a class and the names of its members are treated as equivalents, with the broader class name functioning as the preferred term. As for examples, Waxes OF Plant waxes; Plant waxes USE Waxes.
3. Associative Relationships: This relationship covers associations between terms that are neither equivalent nor hierarchical, yet the terms are semantically or conceptually associated to such an extent that the link between them is made explicit in the thesaurus, on the grounds that it may suggest additional terms for use in indexing or retrieval. The associative relationship used in thesauri is indicated by the abbreviation RT (Related Term). As a general guideline, whenever one term is used, the other should always be implied within the common frames of reference shared by the users of the thesaurus. Either of the following types of terms can be linked by the associative relationship:
a) Those belonging to the same category, and
b) Those belonging to different categories.
• Relationships between terms belonging to the same category: Relationships are needed for terms belonging to the same category in various special situations, primarily to guide the user in locating the desired term. Each of the terms belonging to the same category has its own particular meaning, but the boundary between them is often confused with common usage, to the extent that a user checking one of them in the index should be informed of documents indicated by others. As for examples:
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• Relationships between terms belonging to the different categories: It is possible to establish many grounds for associating terms belonging to different categories. Related Term references are often made between etymologically related terms, i.e., terms that contain the same root, but which do not represent the same kind of thing. The following are some representative examples of typical relational situations.
a) Process / Agent
Temperature control
RT Thermostats
Thermostats
RT Temperature control
b) Process / Counteragent
Inflammation
RT Anti-inflammatory agents
Anti-inflammatory agents RT
Inflammation
c) Action / Property
Polling
RT Public opinion
Public opinion
RT Polling
d) Action / Product:
Weaving
RT Cloth
Cloth
RT Weaving
e) Action / Target:
Harvesting
RT Crops
Crops
RT Harvesting
f) Cause / Effect:
Cloud
RT Rain
Rain RT Cloud
g) Concept or Object / Property:
Poisons
RT Toxicity
Toxicity
RT Poisons
h) Concept or Object / Origins:
Americans
RT United States
United States
RT Americans
i) Concept or Object / Units or Mechanisms of Measurement Associative Relationships:
Electric current
RT Amperes
Amperes
RT Electric current
j) Raw Material / Product:
Wheat
RT Flour
Flour
RT Wheat
k) Discipline or Field of Study / Object or PhenomenonStudy
Neurology
RT Nervous system
Nervous system
RT Neurology
I) Discipline or Field of Study / Practitioner
Mathematics
RT Mathematicians
Mathematicians
RT Mathematics
m) Antonyms:
Height
RT Depth
Depth
RT Height
n) Phrases Containing Syncategorematic Nouns and their Apparent Foci:
Ships
RT Model ships
Model ships
RT Ships
o) Coordinate Ideas:
Hinduism
RT Buddhism
Christianity
Islam
1.6.4 Thesaurofacet:
Thesaurofacet: a thesaurus and faceted classification for engineering and related topics were developed from the English Electric Company’s Faceted classification for Engineering, the first edition of which was published in 1958. Thesaurofacet came about when the third edition ofFaceted Classification for Engineering, published in 1961, was up for revision. This system was used to organize documents belonging to the libraries of the corporation of English Electric. However, with the growing trends in science and technology and the need for using computer techniques and post-coordinate indexing, a decision was taken in 1967 to commission Jean Aitchison, a member of Classification Research Group, to review the indexing needs of the company and the result of that review was the compilation of a new and improved 4th edition of the faceted classification system called Thesaurofacet, published in 1970. In the 4th edition, the alphabetized index to the classification scheme was replaced with a thesaurus.
Thesaurofacet covers the whole field of science and technology but subjects are treated in varying depth and only engineering and allied fields are covered exhaustively. Full subject coverage includes engineering and fields directly related to engineering like computers, measurement and testing, physics and management. Relevant management-related concepts were borrowed from the “Classification of Business Studies” developed by the London Graduate School of Business Studies.
Thesaurofacet is considered as a multi-purpose retrieval language tool because it has classification schedules and a faceted thesaurus. The classification consists of main classes and facets and has a notation system that consists of letters in upper case and numbers from 2 to 9. The faceted thesaurus is the key to the uniqueness of the tool because it offers the user options to identify topics within the system. Because the two are linked, each term in the system appears twice, once in the schedule, and once in the thesaurus, with a notation that links the two parts together. However, the information given about the term in the thesaurus is not the same information given about that term in the schedule. The two parts of the system are complementary and should be used conjunctively and not separately. Finally, Thesaurofacet can be used for the arrangement of books on the shelves and arrangement of entries in the subject catalogues. Further, the index terms are intended to be used for indexing and searching.
If we are asked for information on Documentation, we turn to the thesaurus and find:
Documentation use
Information Science
At Information Science we find
Information Science ZR
UF Documentation
Librarianship
Library science
RT Communication (Sociology)
Data processing
Information theory
Librarians
We also see the notation to the right and we are told to look for ZR in the classification schedules. At ZR in the classification schedule we find that Thesaurofacet divides Information Science using subjects and facets:
Main Class
Subject Field(s)
Fundamental Facets
Sub-Facets
Hierarchies and Arrays
ZR Information science
ZR2 LIBRARIES
By type:
ZR3 National libraries
ZR4 Public libraries
ZR5 Municipal libraries
ZR6 County libraries
ZRB Educational Libraries
By management:
ZRP Library management
Here Information Science is called Main Class. Main class can be divided into subject fields, in this case LIBRARIES, and INFORMATION RETRIEVAL. Subject fields are broken down into fundamental facets, and are printed by bold typeface (e.g. by type, by management, by equipment, etc.). This is where the schedules start to use facet analysis. If we take a look at one of the fundamental facets as an example, Information Retrieval is broken down ‘By type of language’ into the facet Index languages. The facet is broken down into sub-facet Natural Language and Controlled index languages. Terms are then listed in hierarchies and arrays. The schedules are typically used for a broad subject search and browsing through the possible topics that exist within a class. So a user may start with the main class and navigate through the facets and arrays to locate an ideal or more specific topic.
The classification schedules also allow for the combination or synthesis of topics and notation. For example, there is a note in the main class ZL SOCIOLOGY that tells us that this topic can be combined with ZM PSYCHOLOGY to create the synthesized subject field called ZL/ZM SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. Synthesis can indeed be used wherever required, there being no preferred combination order unless there is an instruction in the schedules.
Thus it appears that two types or styles of”faceted classifications integrated with thesauri”: the First type uses subject fields as main subdivisions, and facet analysis is used to determine the relationships and the second type of faceted thesauri are those in which concepts are first divided by facets.
1.6.5 Classaurus:
The vocabulary control device used for POPSI has been designated as Classaurus. It is a category-based (faceted) systematic scheme of hierarchical classification in verbal plane incorporating all the essential features of a conventional IR thesaurus—i.e. control of synonyms, quasi-synonyms, etc. RTs are not shown in the classaurus. A scheme of this type, for its application, calls for a complementary alphabetical index giving the address of each term occurring in the systematic part. The purpose for which a classaurus is used does not necessarily warrant any principle-based arrangement of the terms in the array. Even if the terms in each array are arranged alphabetically the purpose is not going to be disturbed. This feature of the classaurus makes it largely amenable to computerization.
The structure and style of presentation of a classaurus can be systematically presented as follows:
A) Systematic Part
A1 Common Modifiers
A1.1 Form
A1.2 Time
A1.3 Environment
A1 .4 Place
A2 Inter-subject Relation Modifiers
A3 Discipline and Sub-disciplines
A4 Entities
A4.1 Part
A4.2 Type
A5 Properties
A6 Actions
In respect of the systematic part, the following points are to be noted:
a) Each term in the systematic part under each category is enumerated by displaying its COS SCO relationship in a hierarchy of arrays.
b) For each term in the systematic part, the following follows vertically: (a) Definition/ Scope note (if required), and synonyms, quasi-synonyms, and antonyms.
c) No RTs (i.e. non-hierarchically related terms) are enumerated for any term in the classaurus because of its category-based structure. It is assumed that RTs should not be dictated by the designer of the classaurus, rather it should be dictated by the document itself. Any term may be related to any other terms depending upon the nature of the thought-content of the document. Hence, RTs should not be determined beforehand.
d) Each array in the classaurus is open.
e) Each term in the systematic part is assigned a unique address which can be used as a class number.
B) Alphabetical Index Part: This part contains each and every term including synonyms, quasi-synonyms, and antonyms occurring in the systematic part along with its address.
This Article Collected from:
Sarkhel, J. (2017). Indexing languages. Retrieved from http://egyankosh .ac. in/handle /123456789/35770
1. Introduction: All library work is a matter of storage and retrieval of information, and cataloguing and indexing are specially performed to achieve that. Subject cataloguing is intended to embrace only that activity which provides a verbal subject approach to materials added to library collections. Subject indexing is used in information retrieval especially to create index records to retrieve documents on a particular subject. Descriptive cataloguing makes it possible to retrieve the materials in a library by title, author, etc. – in short, all the searchable elements of a cataloguing record except the subjects.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Until the second half of the nineteenth century, descriptive cataloguing was the basic library cataloguing practice that was found necessary. Libraries were much smaller than they are today, and scholarly librarians then were able, with the aid of printed bibliographies, to be familiar with everything available on a given subject and guide the users to it. With the rapid growth of knowledge in many fields during the nineteenth century and the resulting increase in the volume of books and periodicals, it became desirable to do a preliminary subject analysis of such works and then represent them in the catalogue or in printed indexes in such a way that they could be retrievable by subject. Subject cataloguing deals with what a book or other library item is about, and its purpose is to list, under one uniform word or phrase all the materials on a given topic that a library has in its collection. A subject heading is a uniform word or phrase used in the library catalogue to express a topic. The use of authorized words or phrases only, with cross-references from unauthorized synonyms, is the essence of bibliographic control in subject cataloguing. In the literature of LIS, the phrases subject cataloguing and subject indexing are used more or less interchangeably. In this context, it is to be pointed out here that it was Charles Ammi Cutter who first gave a generalized set of rules for subject indexing in his Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue (RDC) published in 1876. But he never used the term ‘indexing’; rather he used the term ‘cataloguing’. In this course material, the phrase subject indexing includes subject cataloguing also. The literature differentiates the two as subject cataloguing is intended to embrace only that cataloguing activity which provides a verbal subject approach to library collections, especially macro documents (i.e. books). It refers to the determination and assignment of suitable entries for use in the subject component of a library’s catalogue. The primary purpose of the subject catalogue is to show which books on a specific subject are possessed by the library. Subject indexing refers to that indexing activity which provides a verbal subject approach to micro documents (e.g., journal articles, research reports, patent literature, etc.). Subject indexing provides a subject entry for every topic associated with the content of a micro document.
The representation of documents and the knowledge expressed by them is one of the central and unique areas of study within Library and Information Science (LIS) and is commonly referred to as indexing. Subject approach to information has been a long and extensive concern of librarianship and is assumed to be the major approach (access method) of users for a very long period. Indexing has traditionally been one of the most important research topics in information science. Indexes facilitate retrieval of information in both traditional manual systems and newer computerized systems. Without proper indexing and indexes, search and retrieval are virtually impossible.
2. Subject Indexing: Origin and Development:
The origin and development of subject indexing are intimately related to the historical development of libraries through ancient and medieval periods to modern days. The libraries of the ancient world used to arrange documents under some subjects. The catalogue, which worked as an index to this store, was predominantly a systematic subject listing according to a scheme of subject headings. The arrangement more or less conformed to the arrangement of documents in the store.
The specific usage of the term index goes back to ancient Rome. There, when used in relation to literary works, the term index was used for the little slip attached to papyrus scrolls on which the title of the work (and sometimes also the name of the author) was written so that each scroll on the shelves could be easily identified without having to pull them out for inspection. From this developed the usage of the index for the title of books. In the first century A.D., the meaning of the word was extended from “title” to a table of contents or a list of chapters (sometimes with a brief abstract of their contents) and hence to a bibliographical list or catalogue. Only the invention of printing around 1450 made it possible to produce identical copies of books in large numbers, so that soon afterward the first indexes began to be compiled, especially those to books of reference. By the end of 13th-century alphabetization by names of authors under the systematic subject, the arrangement was well known. The index to the store or the shelf-list used to be supplemented with an author index to satisfy the author approach of the users of the store. Index entries were not always alphabetized by considering every letter in a word from beginning to end. Most early indexes were arranged only by the first letter of the first word, the rest being left in no particular order at all. Gradually, alphabetization advanced to an arrangement by the first syllable, that is, the first two or three letters, the rest of the entry still being left unordered.
The 15th century saw the entry of the university libraries which brought about a qualitative change. Efforts were made to rank subjects and on devising indexing or cataloguing methods for better utilization of documents. Towards the end of the 15th century, the practice of supplementing systematic listing with an alphabetical subject index was introduced. Only very few indexes compiled in the 16th and early 17th centuries had fully alphabetized entries, but by the 18th century, full alphabetization became the rule. Alphabetical indexing gained new momentum as intellectual debates among the scholars required ready reference to scholarly works with the rise of universities. The pressmarks, which were mainly used for storage of documents, started being used in catalogues as a retrieval tool. But the press marks could not ensure a flexible hierarchical order of subjects and hence it was discarded in favor of notation. In the 19th century, subject access to books was provided by means of classification. Books were arranged by subject and their surrogates were correspondingly arranged in a classified catalogue. Only in the late 19th century, alphabetical subject indexing became widespread and more systematic. The classification system was primitive in nature. It could not go deep enough to the extent of individualizing subjects of documents. The separate existence of the classed catalogues and indexes stirred up the imagination for the compilation of a catalogue which was very much akin to a dictionary in form. Thus were born the forerunners of our dictionary and classified catalogues.
Preparation of back-of-the-book index, historically, maybe regarded as the father of all indexing techniques. Indexing techniques actually originated from this index. It was of two types: Specific index, which shows broad topic on the form of one-idea-one-entry, i.e. the specific context of a specific idea; and Relative index, which shows various aspects of an idea and its relationship with other ideas. The specific index cannot show this, it only shows a broad topic on the form of one-idea-one-entry, i.e. the specific context of a specific idea.
The dictionary catalogue brought some relief into the sharp conflict between subjects of documents and the practice of naming them. Charles Ammie Cutter, who was both a classificationist as well as a theoretician of the library catalogue, observed that the name of the subject assigned to a document did not indicate its specific subject. Rather it indicated the class to which the subject of the document belonged to. For example, assigning the subject ‘plant’ to a document discussing the plant ‘cactus’. The practice
was deficient in helping a user who came for information on a specific subject. The root of the conflict remained deep in the classification system also as the classification was not coextensive with the subjects of the documents. Hence, whatever was left out in classification became conspicuous by their absence while giving class names to individual entries as the subject heading. Cutter, who was an advocate of dictionary catalogue wanted to solve the conflict at the cataloguing level. The year 1876 is particularly important for the library profession for the publication of two outstanding books:
(1) A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library, by Melvil Dewey; and
(2) Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue, by Charles Ammie Cutter.
The first sought to solve the problems by organizing the document store and simultaneously providing an alphabetical subject index for easy access to it while the second, expressing doubts about the efficacy of class headings to be used as specific subject heading, decided to go through a different way by some specific method for naming of the subjects. While Dewey offers a ready made list of names (class names in this case) Cutter suggested some methods for building them up in order to name them more specifically. Cutter’s rules for specific subject headings for use in a dictionary catalogue seemed to have appealed the library professional. Subsequently, there was a demand for some ‘standard list of subject headings’ which could be used in carrying out the specifications in Cutter’s rules. This paved the way for the publication of a list of subject headings by the American Library Association (ALA), to be used in a dictionary catalogue. The list was later revised and published in two more editions which ultimately established a pattern for subsequent subject heading lists like subject headings used in the dictionary catalogue of Library of Congress and Sears List of Subject Headings.
Use of the above standard lists of subject headings raised important questions relating to the use of terminology (whether common or popular terms or scientific and technical terms were to be used), and sequencing of terms in the subject heading (what should be the sequence of terms in case of compound subject headings). But Cutter, as well as compilers of several standard lists of subject headings, failed to provide satisfactory answers to the above-noted questions.
The first quest for a logical approach towards solving the above-noted problems is evident in J. Kaiser’s Systematic Indexing (1911). Kaiser was the first person who gave the idea of categorizing the terms under two fundamental categories: concretes and processes. He recommended the citation order of these categories into the index string. Kaiser suggested that many composite subjects could be analyzed into a combination of concepts indicating a ‘concrete’ object and a ‘process’. In such cases, the concrete should be given precedence over ‘process’ in the order of citation of index terms in a compound subject heading. Kaiser failed to analyze deeply the various types of intricacies involved in the naming of subjects. Nevertheless, his work remains unique till date as he is the first person to suggest certain logical processes for naming subjects in terms of fundamental categories and a citation order of index strings.
Dr. S. R. Ranganathan was the first to analyze the universe of subjects in depth and suggesting a complete theory of naming subjects using a subject indexing language. He realized the fallacy of trying to symbolize the extremely flexible and dynamic multidimensional universe of subjects into a linear, rigid notational model. Just as ready-made class numbers cannot be given according to his scheme of classification to all subjects of the past, present, and future, so also subject headings cannot be made available ready-made. He, therefore, enunciated certain rules on the basis of which subject names could be framed. Ranganthan developed a mechanical procedure for doing it and called it the chain procedure. The basic contention of chain procedure is that a multidimensional universe of subjects cannot be fitted into a rigid one-dimensional model and hence, a chain of terms is required to name a subject where the term indicating the specific subject is stated in a particular context. Chain procedure demonstrated that it is not necessary to depend on the flair of some authorities for the supply of names of subjects. One can very well build up one’s own authority file and use subject names consistently. The names used will be uniform for all libraries following the same scheme of classification. The chain, which is a string of terms, gets organized or arranged following the classification scheme used. Qualities of the classification scheme therefore very much determine the qualities of the subject headings drawn according to chain procedure.
J. E. L. Farradane devised a scheme of pre-coordinate indexing system known as Relational Indexing in the early 1950s. The basic proposition of Farradane’s Relational Indexing was to identify the relationship between concepts by following the learning process through which we develop our power of discrimination in time and space. Farradane’s Relational Indexing has been the subject of scholarly research but was never implemented. Still, we can say that Farradane’s contribution to the area of subject indexing was: analysis of the relationship among each pair of terms, use of relational operators, and representation of the relationship among terms by relational operators leading to the creation of `Analets’. `Analee refers to a pair of terms linked by any of the relational operators as developed by Farradane. Each relational operator is denoted by a slash and a special symbol having a unique memory. For example,
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The contribution of E. J. Coates in subject indexing was not original in nature. Coates merely synthesized the ideas of Cutter, Kaiser, Ranganathan, and Farradane. Coates applied his idea on British Technology Index (now Current Technology Index) of which he was an editor from its inception in 1963 until his retirement in 1976.
Preserved Context Index System (PRECIS), developed by Derek Austin and applied to BNB in 1971 as an alternative to the chain procedure for deriving subject index entries, sought to rectify the problem of co-extensiveness by generating entries with a lead term and the full context of the document. Depending heavily on the computer to generate mechanically all index entries from input strings, PRECIS developed its own code for preparation of input strings by the human indexer and its subsequent processing by computer. Its emphasis has been on generating a printed index for BNB. Though PRECIS was fairly successful in its original mission it does not have the simplicity of chain procedure and considerable skill is required to use it effectively.
Postulate-based Permuted Subject Indexing (POPSI) sought to overcome the shortcomings of chain procedure from an entirely different perspective. It recommended postulates and principles for analyzing the subjects into elementary categories and their subsequent ordering. The postulates are not rigid and hence give flexibility to indexers. As it is essentially distilled out of chain procedure it has managed to retain most of the helpful features of chain procedure such as simplicity. Over the years, Bhattacharya,
Neelameghan, Devadasan, Gopinath, and others have given a sound theoretical foundation to POPSI in terms of ‘General Theory of Subject Indexing Languages’ (GT-SIL). The GT-SIL seeks to analyze the deep structure of Subject Indexing Languages in terms of semantic structure, elementary structure and syntactic structure of subject propositions. In essence, GT-SIL is a logical abstraction of the structures of outstanding subject indexing languages such as those of Cutter, Dewey, Kaiser, and Ranganathan.
It is evident from the above discussion that the research on the development and use of various subject indexing systems was devoted to techniques of constructing pre-coordinate subject headings. A greater part of the pre-coordinate subject indexing system was devoted to syntactical rules of indexing. Rigidity of significance order may not meet the approaches of all users of the index file, though this problem is solved by rotating terms or multiple entry system. It is also evident that even the acceptance of multiple entry system covers only a fraction of the possible number of total permutations. Thus, a large portion of probable approaches or access points is left uncovered. This gap widens rapidly with every increase in the number of terms in a subject heading due to the demand for more specific subject headings. The index file may fail to provide a particular combination which the user is looking for. It may also provide a combination which proves too broad for a particular search. The above considerations and difficulties stemming from the pre-coordination of terms led to the development of post-coordinate indexing or simply coordinate indexing systems like Uniterm, Optical Coincidence Card / Peek-a-boo, Edge-Notched Card, etc during the 1960s.
Computers began to be used to aid information retrieval in the 1950s. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of USA is said to be the first organization to use the machine-produced keywords from Title Index since 1952. H P Luhn and his associates produced and distributed copies of machine produced permuted title indexes in the International Conference of Scientific Information held at Washington in 1958, which he named as Keyword-In-Context (KWIC) index and reported the method of generation of KWIC index in a paper. American Chemical Society established the value of KWIC after its adoption in 1961 for its publication ‘Chemical Titles’. A number of varieties of keyword index are evident in the literature. They differ only in terms oftheir formats but indexing techniques remain more or less the same.
The publication of Science Citation Index (SCI) by Eugene Garfield of the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), Philadelphia in 1963 provided a new approach to the bibliographic file organization. The online version ofthe SCI, known as SCISEARCH, was published in 1974. ISI also brought out the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) in 1973 and 1978 respectively. The publication of the citation classics, with the first issue of Current Contents in 1977, forms an important and interesting venture ofthe ISI.
It has already been mentioned above that the traditional subject indexing systems and techniques have taken a new turn with the applications of computers in the 1950s. In fact, all attempts at computerised indexing were based on two basic methods: Statistical analysis; and Syntactic and semantic analysis. In the arena of computerised indexing, there has been considerable research on the user-interface design, indexing systems using Artificial Intelligence techniques like Natural Language Processing (NLP), Knowledge Representation Model and Expert System-based subject indexing systems. As a result of the phenomenal growth of content on the web as an indexing problem, we have seen a continued interest in the development of tools and techniques to index the Web resources. Different search tools and technologies were developed in finding the resources on the Web so far to make computers understand the semantics underlying contents of the web resources.
3. Meaning and Purpose of Index:
The term index came from the Latin word indicare which means ‘to point out, to guide, to direct, to locate’. An index indicates or refers to the location of an object or idea. It is a methodically arranged list of items or concepts along with their addresses. The process of preparing an index is known as indexing. According to the British Standards (BS 3700: 1964), an index is “a systematic guide to the text of any reading matter or to the contents of other collected documentary material, comprising a series of entries, with headings arranged in alphabetical or other chosen order and with references to show where each item indexed is located”. An index is, thus, a working tool designed to help the user to find his way out of a mass of documented information in a given subject field, or document store. It gives subject access to documents irrespective their physical forms like books, periodical articles, newspapers, audio-visual documents, and computer-readable records including web resources.
It appears from the foregoing discussion that an index indicates or refers to the location of an object/idea/concept. A concept is a unit of thought. The semantic content of a concept can be re-expressed by a combination of other and different concepts, which may vary from one language or culture to another. What the particular body of information is about, in a document constitute its subject. A subject can be defined as any concept or combination of concepts representing a theme in a document. An indexing term is defined as the representation of a concept in the form of either a term derived from natural language or a classification symbol.
A subject is then any concept or combination of concepts which is expressed in the document. The readers’ task is to interpret the words and sentences in the document in order to understand the concepts. Whether a reader understands a document depends on how precisely the author expresses the concepts he refers to and whether the reader is aware of the concepts the author expresses. The basic idea is that the concepts exist before the author writes the document and the reader reads the document.
Similarly, the indexer’s task is to identify concepts in the document and re-express these in indexing terms. This is done first by establishing the subject content, or in other words the content of concepts in the document. Thereafter the principal concept presented in the subject content is identified, and finally, the concepts are expressed in the indexing language. The indexing is successful when the document and the indexing term express the same concepts.
Purpose:
Modem subject indexing practice has its roots in Charles Ammi Cutter’s Rules for a Dictionary Catalog published in 1876. Cutter’s statement of the basic objectives of a catalogue is:
(i) To enable a person to find a book of which the subject is known, and
(ii) To show what the library has on a given subject (and related subjects).
This implies that the main purpose of subject indexing is to satisfy the subject query of the users by enabling an enquirer to identify documents on a given subject and providing information on the presence of material on allied or related subjects.
The first objective refers to the need to locate individual items, and the second refers to the need to collocate materials on the same subject as well as related subjects. A subject is a set of interrelated component ideas in which each component idea is related directly or indirectly to other component ideas. A subject of a document is amenable for structuring into subject heading. It is a kind of linear structuring of subject surrogates, and some criteria for formatting or modeling it into an accessible procedure. The purpose of subject indexing is to:
a) satisfy the subject approach to information;
b) identify pertinent materials on a given subject or topic;
c) enable the enquirer to find materials on related subjects;
d) link related subjects by a network of references;
e) prescribe a standard methodology to subject cataloguers/indexers for constructing uniform subject headings;
f) bring consistency in the choice and rendering of subject entries, using standard vocabulary and according to the given rules and procedures;
g) be helpful to users in accessing any desired document from the catalogue or index through different means of such approach;
h) decide on the optimum number of subject entries, and thus economize the bulk and cost of indexing; and
i) provide user-oriented approach in naming the subjects through any vocabulary common to a considerable group of users, specialists or laymen.
4.Indexing Principles and Process:
4.1 Need and Purpose of Indexing Principles:
Before we discuss the principles of indexing, it is important to know why we need to have principles of indexing. We need principles of indexing:
1) To set out the general directions for the consistent application of subject indexing techniques;
2) To serve as a useful guide for developing new indexing techniques and to develop one that already exists;
3) To facilitate the evaluation of indexing systems;
4) To provide theoretical rationale for particular standards or guidelines for designing subject indexing system and its application;
5) To promote understanding of different subject indexing systems by identifying commonalities underlying them and providing a structure for their comparison; and
6) To determine how the subject headings are established and applied.
4.2 Indexing Principles:
Indexing principles may be stated as:
a) The user as focus: The wording and structure of the subject heading should match what the user will seek in the index;
b) Unity: A subject index must bring together, under one heading all the documents which deal principally or exclusively with the subject, whatever the terms, applied to it by the authors and whatever the varying terms, applied to it at different times. It must use a term which is unambiguous and does not overlap in meaning with other headings in the index.
c) Common Usage: The subject heading chosen must represent common usage or, at any rate, the usage of the class of users for whom the documents on the subject within which the heading falls are intended. Whether a popular term or a scientific one is to be chosen should depend on the approaches of the users.
d) Specificity: The heading should be as specific as the topic it is intended to cover. As a corollary, the heading should not be broader than the topic. Rather than using a broader heading, the cataloguer should use two specific headings which will approximately cover it.
4.3 Indexing Policy:
Indexers must take policy decisions about how many terms should be included in an index entry, how specific the terms should be and how many entries an index should incorporate. Together this gives a depth of indexing. The depth of indexing describes the thoroughness of the indexing process with reference to exhaustivity and specificity. While taking such a policy decision, indexers should strive for a balance between specificity and exhaustivity and should consider the requirement of the users of the index along with the cost and time factors.
Exhaustivity in Indexing:
Exhaustivity in indexing is the detail with which the topics or features of a document are analyzed and described. In other words, an exhaustive index is one which lists all possible index terms associated with the thought content of a document. In contrast to higher exhaustivity, higher specificity increases precision at the cost of the impaired recall. Greater exhaustivity gives a higher recall leading to the retrieval of all the relevant documents along with the retrieval of a large number of irrelevant documents or documents which only deal with the subject in little depth.
Specificity in Indexing:
The specificity describes how closely the index terms match the topics they represent in a document. It is the extent to which the indexing system permits us to be precise when specifying the subject of a document we are processing. Higher specificity leads to high precision, whereas lower specificity will lead to low precision, but high recall. Specific indexing provides specific terms for all or most topics and features and results in a larger indexing vocabulary than more generic indexing. Specificity tends to increase with exhaustivity in indexing vocabulary as the more terms we include, the narrower those terms will be. A high level of specificity increases precision.
4.4 Indexing Process:
The representation of documents and the knowledge expressed by them is one of the central and unique areas of study within library and information science (LIS) and is commonly referred to as indexing. A common demand in the LIS field is for a set of rules or a prescription for how to index. When this demand is raised it is usually based on the assumption that it is possible to explain the intellectual operations in the subject indexing process. The indexing process basically consists of two intellectual steps: conceptual analysis and translation.
Conceptual analysis:
This step refers to the identification of different component ideas associated with the thought content of the document and the establishment of the interrelationship between those component ideas. According to Ranganathan, it involves the work in the idea plane which is carried out in two stages, although these tend to overlap in practice:
a) examining the document and establishing its subject content;
b) identifying the principal concepts present in the subject;
a) Examining the document and establishing its subject content: In the first stage of the conceptual analysis of the thought content of the document, it is examined for the establishment of its subject content. A complete reading of the document often is impracticable, but the indexer should ensure that no useful information has been overlooked. While examining the document, the indexer should give particular attention to a number of places in the document: the title; the abstract, if provided; the list of contents; the introduction, the opening chapters and paragraphs, and the conclusion; illustrations, diagrams, tables and their captions; words or groups of words which are underlined or printed in an unusual typeface.
b) Identifying the principal concepts present in the subject: In this stage of the indexing process the indexer identifies the principal concepts in the subject. The second stage is laid over the first stage in the sense that the indexer should not go back to the document to look for concepts. Rather, the indexer should look for concepts within the findings of the first step; that is the natural language representations of the subject content. The indexer does not necessarily need to retain, as indexing elements, all the concepts identified during the examination of the document. After examining the document, the indexer needs to follow a logical approach in selecting those concepts that best express its subject. While selecting the principal concepts of the document the indexer should take into consideration the purpose for which the indexing data will be used. Indexing data may be used for the purpose like preparation of subject headings for the subject catalogue, production of printed alphabetical indexes to different types of information products, and computerized storage of indexing data elements for subsequent retrieval of the documents.
Translation:
During the first two stages, the indexer has established the subject content of the document and identified the principal concepts in the subject. The indexer is hereafter ready to translate the concepts into the indexing language. This step refers to the expression of principal concepts as identified while analyzing the thought content of the document into the language of the indexing system. According to Ranganathan, it involves the work in the verbal plane which calls for the familiarity with different components of the given indexing language: controlled vocabulary, syntax and semantics including their working roles for displaying the indexing data in a subject index.
If the concepts that the indexer has identified during the second stage are present in the indexing language the indexer should translate the concept into preferred terms. At this point in the indexing process, the indexer should be aware that indexing languages may impose certain constraints in translating the concepts. If the indexer uses a controlled indexing language, this may not permit the exact representation of a concept encountered in a document. The concern is that the concepts that the indexer identified during the second stage of the indexing process might not be present in the indexing language. The indexer is then forced either to choose a term that does not express exactly the same concept or add a new term to the vocabulary to represent the concept. Here, the indexer is required to be familiar with the particular indexing language and the specific rules and mechanisms of the indexing language.
An indexing language is a set of terms and devices used to establish the relationship between terms for representing the content of the documents as well as queries of the users. It consists of three basic elements: controlled vocabulary, syntax and semantics. Controlled vocabulary has been defined as a limited set of terms showing their relationships and indicating ways in which they may usefully be combined to provide a subject index to the documents and to search for these documents, in a particular system. Syntax comprises a grammatical structure or a set of rules that govern the sequence of occurrence of terms/words in representing the content of the document. Semantics refers to the systematic study of how meaning is structured, expressed and understood in the use of an indexing language. More discussion on indexing languages can be seen in another post.
4.6 Problems in Indexing:
An indexer analyses a text and strives to ascertain meaning. Ideally, this analysis anticipates a searcher at some future time, looking for text with the same meaning. But, meaning is not fixed at either end of this process. And even if the meaning is relatively unambiguous or stable, the terms used to represent it are not. Thus, most indexing processes encounter problems at two levels:
Interpreting meaning as intended by the author and as construed by the potential user;
Choosing the terms to represent that meaning that will enable this communication to be clear and as true as it can be. (Bearing in mind that such fidelity is a relative thing, to begin with)
Fidelity in the context of IR denotes the accuracy with which term(s) used to represent the name of the subject represent the meaning. A number of problems and issues associated with indexing are:
a) Subjects of documents are complex—usually multi-worded terms;
b) Users’ request for information tend to multidimensional;
c) Choice of terms—among different categories, viz. entities, activities, abstracts, properties and heterogeneous concepts (synonymous to semantic factoring);
d) Choice of word forms—among different forms, viz. noun vs. adjective, singular vs. plural;
e) Homographs—ifneglected, will give rise to reduced relevance. Seriousness o f the problem will depend on the coverage of the system.
f) Choice of the kind of vocabulary that should be used, and syntactical and other rules necessary for representing complex subjects;
g) Identification of term relationship—semantic vs. syntactic;
h) Decision about the exhaustivity level (i.e. the depth to which indexing should be done);
i) Decision about the specificity level (i.e. The levels of generality and specificity at which concepts should be represented);
j) Ensuring inter indexer consistency (i.e. consistency in indexing between several indexers), and intra-indexer consistency (i.e. consistency in indexing by the same indexer at different times); and
k) Ensuring that indexing is done not merely on the basis of a document’s intrinsic subject content but also according to the type of users who may be expected to benefit from it and the types of requests for which the document is likely to be regarded as useful.
4.7 Quality in Indexing:
The quality of an index is defined in terms of its retrieval effectiveness—the ability to retrieve what is wanted and to avoid what is not. Quality in indexing leads to a better performance in retrieving documents. The governing idea is that indexing should be neutral, objective, and independent of the particular indexer’s subjective judgment. An indexing failure on the part of the indexer may take place at the following stages of the indexing process:
➢ Failure in establishing concepts during the conceptual analysis of the content of a document;
➢ Failure to identify a topic that is of potential interest to the target user group;
➢ Misinterpretation of the content of the document, leading to the selection of inappropriate term(s);
➢ Failure in translating the result of conceptual analysis into the indexing language;
➢ Failure to use the most specific term(s) to represent the subject of the document;
➢ Use of inappropriate term(s) for the subject of a document because of the lack of subject knowledge or due to lack of seriousness on the part of the indexer; and
➢ Omission of important term(s).
The quality of indexing depends on two factors: (i) qualification and expertise of the indexer; and (ii) quality of the indexing tools. In order to achieve quality in indexing, the indexer should have adequate knowledge of the field covered by the documents s/he is indexing. S/he should understand the term of the documents as well as the rules and procedures of the specific indexing system. Quality control would be achieved more effectively if the indexers have contact with users. An indexer who has contact with the users might better be able to represent the documents in accordance with how the users think. The idea is that the indexer should attempt to determine the subject of the document taking into account the users’ questions and information needs. This might help the indexer when a document contains multiple concepts. In such a situation, the indexer can select only those concepts to represent the content of a document which is regarded as most relevant by a given community of users. Indexing quality can be tested by analysis of retrieval results, e.g. by calculating recall and precision ratios.
Indexing Consistency:
It is assumed that there is a relationship between indexing consistency and indexing quality. That is to say, an increase in consistency can be expected to cause an improvement in indexing quality. Traditionally, consistency in indexing has long been considered as an acceptable indicator of indexing quality. Consistency in indexing is essential for effective retrieval. Indexing consistency refers to “the extent to which agreement exists on the terms to be used to index some document” (Lancaster, 2003). Consistency is a measure that relates to the work of two or more indexers. It should, remain relatively stable throughout the life of a particular indexing system. Consistency is particularly important if the information is to be exchanged between agencies in a documentary network. An important factor in reaching the level of consistency is complete impartiality in the indexes. The goal of the consistency is to promote standard practice in indexing.
It has for long been observed that different indexers tend to assign different index terms to the same document as they differ considerably in their judgment as to which terms reflect the contents of the document most adequately. Essentially, indexing consistency is seen as a measure of the similarity of the reaction of different human beings processing the same information. Indexing consistency in a group of indexers is defined as the degree of agreement in the representation of the essential information content of the document by certain sets of indexing terms selected individually and independently by each of the indexers in the group.
In the process of indexing, indexers choose what topics to represent and what to call those topics. The goal is to select and name topics consistently so that all of the material about any given topic will be found together. Ideally, if two indexers use the same thesaurus or classification system to index the same document, they are supposed to assign the same index terms or class numbers. In practice, indexers are not always consistent with each other, because subject indexing is essentially a subjective process. Indexers may miss important points of the document, and add irrelevant terms. This would stem from insufficient knowledge of indexers about the subject. Decades of research on consistency between indexers and by the same indexer at different times has documented medium to high levels of inconsistency.
Article Collected From:
Sarkhel, J. (2017). Unit-9 Basics of Subject Indexing. Retrieved from http://egyankosh.ac.in/handle/123456789/35769
Juran Sarkhel (2017).(Professor of Library & Information Science, University of Kalyani, India)
1.1 Introduction: Teachers affect eternity; no one can tell where their influence stops. As a general rule, teachers teach more by what they are than by what they say. – Hendry Adams Teaching
Education is the process of drawing out the inborn capacities of an individual to develop his personality by training. It represents the total process of human learning. From the birth family and society educate humans to adapt to the environment mentally, physically, emotionally, and socially. The progress and prosperity of a nation are determined by its growth in education. Education should bring intellectual, social, cultural and scientific outlook in learners so as to make them better citizens. Along with knowledge acquisition education should develop the skill of problem-solving and a variety of desirable values like kindness, tolerance, dedication, confidence, and honesty. The main aim of education is to bring radical changes in student’s life, their behaviour, and attitudes which could be achieved by the role of teachers. The qualities of teachers have become a decisive factor in achieving the quality education. The ultimate goal of education can be achieved only when teachers have certain characteristics and qualities in them. Thus, the main energizing force of a school is its teacher and the effectiveness of it depends vitally upon the quality of its teachers.
In 1986, the National Policy on Education (NPE) has stated that ‘the status of the teacher reflects the socio-cultural ethos of a society’. The government, administrators, and the community are to create conditions to motivate and inspire teachers constructively so as to enable them to innovatively devise appropriate methods relevant to the needs of the community. Friedman (2000) had emphasized that educators are more responsible not only for the academic progress of their students but for their personal progress as well. He commented that teachers are confronted with parents’ expectations regarding their student’s performance and often receive blame for any shortcomings of the students. These situations may lead teachers to potential stress which might have negative effects on their profession. It may also affect their personal well-being and their mental health. It is therefore essential for teachers to develop and maintain a good relationship with their colleagues, supervisors, and administrators for support and assistance.
1.2 Profession:
Profession refers to those activities performed for some specific purpose under certain rules which are recognized by the society. In the words of Kinduka (1965) the English word profession has been derived from the Latin word `Profited’ which means to declare publicity, to promise or to vow. The word profession meant ‘a sense of religious dedication’ during the 13th century. It refers to the set of activities performed based on some knowledge and skill to serve the public and earn money intern adhering to the rules established by the society. Professions are occupations with special power and prestige. The discrete components of professional ethics include honesty, transparency, integrity, loyalty, and confidentiality. A group of individuals adhering to ethical standards and possessing required special knowledge and skills in the area of their interest and encouraging others to continue seeking their service are termed as ‘professionals’. In other words, the member of a profession is a professional. They are governed by codes of ethics and profess a commitment to competence, morality, and goodness of the public upholding the laws, ethics, and principles as a way of practice. Dedication towards duty is the core concept of a profession.
1.3 Teachers as Professionals:
In olden days only medicine and law were treated as professions but now teaching has been included as a profession and a noble profession. Education has some major components such as students, teachers, administrators, curriculum, and technology. The most critical component of education is the teacher. A teacher is one who transfers his skill, knowledge and learning experience to the learners in a school setting. The teaching profession comprises of many activities and one who executes these activities is the teacher. The teacher is expected to direct, to impart knowledge, to guide and serve the students with care by understanding their needs. The process of teaching includes understanding, believing and following the legislated frameworks, identifying and responding to the needs of students, maintaining a safe environment conducive to learning. The quality of teaching depends on the love and dedication of the teachers towards their profession. The teaching profession enlightens both the students and the teachers. Teaching is the noblest of all the professions since all professionals had their own teachers. Teachers in modern society should possess the required skills and qualifications and several specific characteristics like personal qualities, commitment, ethical and moral values to perform their duties effectively.
1.4 Attitude and the teaching profession:
Allport (1935) has defined attitude as a mental and neural state of readiness to respond, organized through experiences exerting a directive and dynamic influence on behaviour. It is a state of readiness to perform an action. It is an observable trait which characterizes a person’s thought and actions. Attitudes are formed from an individual’s personal experience. Attitude includes interests and sentiments of individuals. They guide individuals to select objects, situations, and ideas from the environment. The teaching profession requires certain dominant behaviour of teachers. This profession considers service above personal gains. The success of the teaching-learning process depends on the attitude of the teacher. The personality of students can be developed from the personality of teachers who are kind, caring, and ready to sacrifice and who show sincere interest in students. Teachers who are confident and adjustable are respected by their students and are successful. A teacher should
❖ Demonstrate care and kindness in the classroom
❖ Share responsibility with the colleagues + Encourage creativity in students
❖ Understands the student and accept the diversity of them
❖ Individualize instructions and treat all the students equally
❖ Avoid negative communication
The attitude towards a teaching profession shows the personality of the teacher. Teachers with positive attitude try their best and achieve the goal. On the other hand, teachers with the negative attitude are frustrated and are dissatisfied in their profession. A person with desirable attitude will easily adjust to the job and produce good results.
1.5 Professional ethics for school teachers:
Professional ethics are the guidelines of code that provide direction in enhancing the dignity of any professional work. It is felt that to ensure its dignity, the status of the teaching profession is to be raised. Teachers need to be diligent professionals with knowledge and skill, personal values, ethical and moral values and commitment towards their work. Being nation-builders they should serve to keep the profession in the highest possible esteem. The code of professional ethics should be diligently followed by teachers. It should be instilled like an oath to pursue truth and devote towards excellence. According to NCTE a teacher should
Recognize that every child has a fundamental right to education
Recognize that every child has an inherent potential and talent
Recognize the need to promote the concept of the composite culture of India and a sense of national identity
Recognize the need to enhance the self-esteem of teachers
Recognize that teachers, being an integral part of social milieu, share the needs and aspirations of the people
Realizing that the community respect and support for the teachers are dependent on the teachers’ professionalism
Realizing the need for self-direction and self-discipline among members of the teaching community
Principles have been identified to serve as guidelines for teacher’s conduct in the following five major areas of professional activities which encompass the work of a teacher.
Relation of teachers to students
Relation of teachers to profession and colleagues
Relation of teachers to the management/administration
Relation of teachers to parents/guardians
Relation of teachers to society and the Nation
1.6 Role of teachers in modern society:
The teacher occupies the central position in an educational system. A teacher should play many roles in the classroom. Teachers must influence their pupils with their inspiring personalities. The attitude of teachers plays an important role in their teaching process. Teacher’s attitude towards teaching is the key factor for the success of any institution. The world is always in a state of flux. Teachers should modify the methods of teaching according to the changing world and impart the right type of education for future generations. Apart from mere imparter of knowledge, they have to be an interpreter of knowledge. Teachers are to construct knowledge and transform personality in their students. The teacher should be a friend, philosopher and a guide who help their students in their journey of education. They should adhere greatly to the fundamental values that guide every individual’s life. A teacher should,
❖ Understand students’ feelings
❖ Admit their mistakes and corrects them immediately
❖ Accept the responsibilities of the classroom and students’ success
❖ Display a sense of humour
❖ Maintain confidential trust and respect
❖ Be flexible and spontaneous
❖ Receive criticism with a positive attitude
❖ Provide constructive feedback to colleagues
❖ Work cooperatively and collaboratively with others to achieve the goal
Thus a teacher has multifarious roles.
Democrat – The teacher is expected to be a Democrat and promote democratic values in students.
Detective – They should find and rectify the student’s misbehaviour.
Inspirer – She/he should inspire their students and be a role model for them.
Moralist – She/he should inculcate the moral values and attitudes cherished by the society.
Confident Person – They should act in a way to win the confidence of students.
Facilitator of Learning – A teacher should promote effective learning in the student.
The leader of the group – A teacher should act as a friend, philosopher and a guide.
Judge – Evaluation of student’s achievement should be done without any bias.
Missionary – A teacher should serve the students wholeheartedly without expecting substantial rewards.
Second parent – Teachers should treat the students with love and affection.
Reformer and Secularist – They should act as agents of social change.
Secularist – They should promote secular values in students.
Scientist – Teachers should promote a spirit of inquiry in students.
Introduction: Educational Technology has emerged as a new discipline in the field of education. According to Sharma (1982), Educational Technology implies the use of all modern media, methods, materials, practices, and theories, principles for maximizing the learning by control of the environment, media and method. In a teacher-centered approach, the strategies are designed to provide the students with a highly flexible system of learning, which is geared to the individual’s life and learning styles. Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Teaching styles have been undergoing various changes from time immemorial. One of those styles of teaching is e-teaching from e-content. This type of teaching brings innovative technology, removes the barrier of distance and time, and provides greater flexibility, allowing the learner to learn at his own place and pace. This also transforms ideas and information into innovation, flexible delivery and provides rapid development. In addition to that, it includes text, video, audio, animation, virtual environment, self-paced, hands-on information, etc.
1.2. Concept of Education:
Education is a process of cognitive cartography, mapping our experiences and finding a variety of reliable routes to optimal states when we find our self in non-optimal states. It is an important tool to shape human beings in the process of civilization. Humanness evolves through education. This means that education is not only a process of teaching and learning but also a social emancipation. In the words of Swami Vivekananda, “Education is manifestation of perfection already exist in man”. This goes to say that, the learner has some hidden potentiality which can be enhanced with the help of the technology module. In order to enhance the potentiality of the learner, the researcher has prepared a small piece of Multimedia courseware for teaching chemistry to improve the quality of education.
1.3 Definition:
The term education has been defined by different educationalists, philosophers, and thinkers in different ways. According to James L.Mursell, Education is the shaping of personality (1968). David W Johnson states that Education is the structuring of stations in ways that help students change, through learning in international and sometimes unintentional ways (1974). The Oxford Universal Dictionary defines education as the systematic instruction, schooling or training given to the young (and by extension, to adults) in preparation for the work of life. It is the whole course of scholastic instructions which a person, often qualified as classical, legal, medical and technical. Education is a human development effort that contributes to the cultural transformation of citizens.
According to Kishore Gandhi (1999) Education is the aggregate of all the processes by which a person develops abilities, attitudes and other forms of behaviour of positive value in the society in which he lives. The goal of education is to shape people. So that they develop integral, multifaceted personalities and are able to carry out fully their role by developing their intellectual physical and spiritual capacities and encouraging a more educated level of human feeling and aesthetic faster thus turning the ideological principle into personal connections and habits of everyday behaviour (TorstenHusen 1994).
Education is a reorganizing or reconstructing of experience. It has all the time an immediate end and so far as an activity is educative, it reaches that end, the direct transformation of the quality of experience. (W.G.Reeder, 2001)
1.4 Aims of Higher Education:
According to Kothari Commission (1964-66), the following are the aims of education:
(a) To increase productivity: This is the first aim of education in our democratic setup, and it is to increase production by leaps and bounds. This increased production should match with the increasing population. (b) To develop social and national unity: National unity is greatly essential for national reconstruction. The feeling of national unity can be developed through education only. Hence, the aims of education should be to develop social and national unity.
(c) To consolidate democracy: Education is necessary for the success of democracy. So to consolidate democracy, education should be organized well to provide more and more effective experiences for children to inculcate in them the qualities of democratic living. Only then, national consciousness will stimulate national outlook, sense of national character and responsibility.
(d) To modernize the country: The fourth aim of education is to modernize the country. This could be done by learning various kinds of scientific knowledge, together with useful techniques of production. It has to be used intelligently to boost our production bringing about the desired change in our old ideologies.
(e) To develop social, moral and spiritual values: As far as this aim is concerned human values should be inculcated in the children to enable them to become human beings.
Meenakshi, C. (2017). Awareness of dreadful diseases and environmental pollution on the personal values of the college students. Alagappa University. http://hdl.handle.net/10603/202032
