17-04-2012, 01:45 PM
Open Source Library Management System Software
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INTRODUCTION
LIBRARY is defined as a place in which books,
manuscripts, recordings, films, or reference materials are
kept for private or public uses. Typically, a library must
be able to handle some housekeeping information such as
acquisition, interlibrary loan, cataloging, circulation, serials
management, statistical reports and references. A library
management system software package is designed especially
to handle such housekeeping tasks. A rapidly growing of
information technology adds some features to library
management system software packages such as features to
handle digital media, e-book, e-journals, online public access
catalog (OPAC), a feature to connect and exchange
information with a digital library system, an ability to connect
with networks of libraries, machine-readable cataloging
(MARC) standard [7] support and Z39.50 standard [8]
support.
RELATED WORKS
As mentioned above, there are a lot of publications on open
source library related software packages. However, these
publications are focusing either on user satisfactions (e.g.,
[11],[18],[19], [20],[21]) or on usability of the software
package (e.g., [9],[12],[13], [15]). Details of these
publications are given below.
Breeding [9] provides general information on the
differences between open source software packages and
proprietary software packages on common issues and
approaches related to integrated library system domain. An
overview of integrated library system software packages and a
list of proprietary vendors are also given in the paper.
REVIEW METHODOLOGY
In this study, several popular open source library
management system software packages are reviewed. Table I
gives the list of software packages. The focused features to be
reviewed are listed in Table II. Table III gives a list of
additional information for compatibility consideration.
CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, several open source software packages related
to library management systems are reviewed. The review is
focusing on four main components in a library management
system including traditional services, electronic document
management, interlibrary loan support and common services
such as user management, security and statistical report
generation ability. In addition to these four main components,
features such as RFID support, alert system, multiple language
World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 77 2011
support and remote access capability are also mentioned. To
organize the technical compatibility of each software package,
the supported environment, programming language
requirement, basic requirement, active software support
forums or companies and the availability of online documents
are also reviewed.