Library of Congress Seeks Feedback from Users of Bibliographic and Cataloging Products

    The Library of Congress is soliciting help in a survey of bibliographic and cataloging products. The survey is to determine the value and use of the products. LC will “use the study to guide its response to this changing cataloging environment, towards effectively defining its future role, adapting a sustainable financial model, and better serving its audience in the coming years,” according to an LC statement.

   This survey is directed at managers of cataloging and technical services units, catalogers, and vendors and distributors of bibliographic data and tools. The survey is available at www.digisurvey.com (username catalog, password survey) and will close after April 12, 2012.

Libraries Are Colleges’ Most Effective Tech Investment, Surveys Find

          Two surveys conducted by Inside Higher Ed found that college and university chief academic officers/provosts and presidents alike consider library technology to be their most effective technological investment.

           The 2011-12 Inside Higher Ed Survey of College and University Chief Academic Officers found that, on average, CAOs/provosts rated their institutions’ investment in library technology as 58.8 percent effective, a higher percentage than they gave to any other technology investment. Within that overall score, for-profit institutions were the most satisfied, with a ranking of 77.4 percent, followed by private doctoral programs at 64.9 percent. Private associates programs were the most dissatisfied at 42.9 percent, followed by private baccalaureate programs at 50 percent.

              In Presidential Perspectives on the Effectiveness of Campus Investments in Information Technology, presidents were harder on library tech than provosts, rating its effectiveness at 51 percent. But that lower number still made library resources and services the only category that a majority of all presidents rated as very effective. Library resources was the top category chosen overall as well specifically by private and for-profit institutions. Interestingly, public colleges and universities ranked library tech third, behind online distance education and on campus instructional technologies, even though they scored it higher numerically – at 53.1 percent compared to only 46.9 percent for private institutions. Public baccalaureate programs were the most satisfied with their library technology effectiveness at 60.8 percent; public masters programs were least satisfied at 45.2 percent.

Dewey (Free) From Android Library Market

Dewey (Free)

The Dewey decimal codes in an easy off-line app
A simple reference for the Dewey decimal library codes. Easy to use off-line app. This data can also be managed by the paid for RefLibrary application 

Screenshots

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OCLC Releases FAST as Linked Data

OCLC has released FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) as Linked Data.

FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology), an enumerative, faceted subject heading schema derived from the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), is now available as an experimental Linked Data service (http://id.worldcat.org/fast/) and is made available under the Open Data Commons Attribution License.

The FAST authority file, which underlies the FAST Linked Data release, has been created through a multi-year collaboration of OCLC Research and the Library of Congress. Specifically, it is designed to make the rich LCSH vocabulary available as a post-coordinate system in a Web environment.

"Linked Data" is an approach to publishing data on the Web which enhances its utility by making references to persons, places, things, etc. more consistent and linkable across domains.

The release of FAST as Linked Data provides FAST headings that support both human and machine access. FAST incorporates links to corresponding LCSH authorities. In addition, many of the geographic headings have links to the GeoNames geographic database (http://www.geonames.org/).

Another Open Source Integrated Library Software

Project Next-L, the librarian community in Japan has announced the release of the open-source integrated library system, Next-L Enju Leaf 1.0.0.

Next-L Enju Leaf is a full-featured ILS built on Ruby on Rails 3.1, Apache Solr and their RESTful architecture. A live demo site is available.

Next-L Enju has been adopted by some libraries in Japan, for example, National Diet Library and National Institute for Materials Science.

Are you fed up by organising your vast CD/DVD collection???

Use GentibusCD  --A wonderful free software to make catalogue of ur CDs  & DVD

If you use many removable disks such as cdroms,  you know that it is sometimes very difficult to find a file among all these drives. The only solution consists in inserting each one in your computer and to use the files manager to research
your file. This operation, if you have more than ten disks, can take a very long time... Gentibus CD enables you to scan your removable drives or photo CDs and store thumbnail images of the pictures on your PC. The software offers special browsers to consult your disks easily by file types (video, mp3, image, program, ...), as well as extensive search functionality to quickly locate any kind of file. Download http://www.gentibus.com/bin/GentibusCDSetup.exe

Call for volunteers - GLAM / Museum initiative for Wikimediaindia

Initiative Context

Museums are important cultural institutions for GLAM initiatives. There is no complete and reliable list Museums across India. This is due to various reasons like geographical distribution and jurisdiction. These institutions have a wealth of cultural knowledge and artifacts and therefore are key to partner with.

Some of the incredible artifacts they house are not widely known to the general public. As an example Mysore museums house the Halmidi inscription has the oldest kannada inscriptions that go back to 400-500 AD.

Museums can come under various jurisdictions like the following:

• Archaeological survey of India
• Central ministries - Culture, Rail, etc
• State archaeology departments
• Run by public sectors
• Private ownership
• Run by Trusts or NGOs

Museums can cover various themes:

• Heritage
• Archaeological
• Art and Crafts
• Folk forms/culture
• Science
• and more...

What needs to be done?

Catalog and compile a reliable list of Museums for each of the states and UTs in the country. This will need to done by reviewing various sources online, state and central departments.
Subsequently a subset of these could be chosen for specific initiatives.

Call for volunteers

This is a for volunteers to assist with this compilation. We need one volunteer for each of the states.
Please volunteer here: http://wiki.wikimedia.in/List_of_Museums_in_India
Starting point for GLAM initiatives: http://wiki.wikimedia.in/GLAM_India

Look forward to your active participation.

Indian ePapers: Online newspapers from India, e-Papers list

Online newspapers from India: Read your favorite Indian epapers

Indian newspapers have more than 400 years of history and the first newspaper was initiated in the mid of 1700, that is The Bengal Gazette. India has more than 2000 daily newspapers in 100 languages with a combined circulation of 88 million and some of leading dailies are Hindustan Times, The Mint, The Telegraph, Asian Age, Indian Express, Financial Express, The Pioneer and many more.

The demand for online newspapers has been increasing from the past few years with the growing reach of Internet. India's 60,000,000 Internet users comprise approximately 6.0% of the country's population and about 4,010,000 people in India have access to broadband Internet as of 2008 figures. ePapers provide the latest breaking news with a minute update. Some of the leading indian ePapers are provided below link.
Indian ePapers: Online newspapers from India, e-Papers list

New Open Government Platform code released

open source release for an Open Government Platform at http://www.data.gov/opengovplatform…

Among the actions in the U.S. National Action Plan announced by President

Obama is an effort under the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue to produce

“Data.gov-in-a-Box,” an open source version of the United States’ Data.gov

data portal and India’s India.gov.in document portal. The U.S. and India

are working together to produce an open source version available for

implementation by countries globally, encouraging governments around the

word to stand up open data sites that promote transparency, improve citizen

engagement, and engage application developers in continuously improving

these efforts. Technical teams from the governments of the U.S. and India

have been working together since August of this year, with a planned launch

of a complete open source product (which is now called the Open Government

Platform (OGPL) to reflect its broad scope) in early 2012. Find out

more<http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/12/05/datagov-goes-global>about

the evolution of this project from the U.S. Chief Information Officer

and Chief Technology Officer.

Check out the Open Government Platform repository on 

Github<http://www.data.gov/opengovplatform#TB_inline?height=200&width=400&in...>.

You'll find here a growing set of open source, open government platform

code that allows any city, organization, or government to create an open

data site.

The first module released is the Data Management System, which provides the

tools and capabilities for an automated process for publishing data in the

Open Government Platform, an open source product designed to facilitate

governments around the world to stand up their own open government data

sites. Any government adopting the Open Government Platform will be able to

download and use the DMS code to submit, approve, and update catalog data

electronically on Open Government Platform websites and view management

metrics reports.

Our next planned release will be from India and related to the web site for

the Open Government Platform.

The U.S. and India will be providing additional modules in the future, and

developers are encouraged to participate, provide feedback, and create new

modules and capabilities!

The teams working on this project are the National Informatics

Centre<http://www.data.gov/opengovplatform#TB_inline?height=200&width=400&in...>in

India and Data.gov <http://www.data.gov/> in the U.S.

Success story of Koha adoption in Nigeria

A majority of libraries in Nigeria operate their libraries completely manually. Nigeria is a developing country and there are many challenges and constraints facing library automation. There is erratic power supply and not many professional librarians. There is also an absence of maintenance and support agreements present from library vendors. The funding present for libraries in Nigeria is close to non-existent, even though there is a rule in academic institutions that a certain percentage of funding should go to the library – that does not happen. Even sometimes there is a poor attitude (negative) from the heads of the libraries.

Adeyemi College of Education, which was established in 1962 and is named after the Reverend Canon M C Adeyemi (1882-1942) and was created to produce qualified manpower to teach education. They offer certificates in education, bachelors degrees, and post graduate degrees. There are about 10,000 students and their library has a collection size of about 50,000 records.

Migration to Koha, First the library director had to convince the management of the library to provide funding to purchase hardware and other accessories for the library. They agreed!!! Using an education fund they were able to purchase equipment and begin installing Koha and manually migrating their data to Koha. There were some initial problems , such as phobia of the staff in automation, erratic power supplies (which is a very common problem in Nigeria).

Final thoughts – They are very excited in presenting their story and Koha to other college community members in Nigeria and help them spread and install Koha. Koha is gaining recognition in Nigeria. They would love to host a Koha conference in Nigeria and we really hope that they will be able to some day.

It’s very encouraging to hear success stories about Koha in developing countries and that we are all part of helping these people and librarians get and use a really great system. Go Nigeria and Go Koha!

Cybrarian - Asia's 1st Cloud based Library Automation Solution

 

CYBRARIAN is a ready-to-use, cloud hosted, Software as a Service platform with a comprehensive set of features that help library managers in establishing and running their libraries. Leveraging the latest technological breakthroughs of agile development, cloud based computing, clustered computing, security and scalability, CYBRARIAN provides a reliable, scalable & proven solution at an affordable cost to libraries for building and managing their online presence. CYBRARIAN has been built through several years of research in the library industry and every aspect of the platform has been designed from a librarian & user’s perspective through simplified interfaces. While the backend is smart, robust and technologically deep – the management tools are simple, intuitive and user friendly.

Functional Components:

• Online Public Access Catalog
• Cataloging
• Authority Management
• Serials Management
• Circulation
• Scheduling
• Reporting : Standard & Custom
• Z39.50
• Reservations
• Acquisitions

Overview OPAC, Cataloging & Authority Management, Serials Management, Circulation, Scheduling and Reporting Modules included in single, modest fee.

Next Generation Technology from World-Class Engineers Completely Web-based. Open systems design for easy, seamless integration. True 3-tier thin client, server-centric design for easy management. Updates are installed on the server only. We perform all updates. Latest post-relational database technology enables powerful and self-customized reporting. Complete scalability for any size of library or consortia, any number of holdings and users. Cross-platform performance on any workstation, or browser. Rock-solid performance from a development team experienced in mission-critical applications.

Serials Management that is Unparalleled Efficient design eliminates steps for check-in and routing, reduces manual work. Claims management and library-defined warnings for missing issues. The OPAC elegantly displays serials holdings and links to e-journals. Provides critical capabilities in a research environment where journals are key holdings.

An Elegant, Easy-to-use OPAC Embedded graphics of photos, graphics, book, and journal covers in initial and detail results. Direct access to electronic resources and databases. Customized interfaces for multiple user needs. Multiple library locations and union catalogs are easy to implement. Distinct serial display with volume/issue details.

Built In Customization You control fonts, colors, and background. Add library or organization logo, other popular links. Cybrarian provides functionality but you set policy with hundreds of settings for Circulation and OPAC fonts, colors, terms used, even search and display logic. Reports can be customized and created as per the users requirement on the fly using Cybrarian Reporting Services.

Standards Compliant MARC 21, Z39.50, SQL, etc.

Price: Performance Higher priced systems don't offer comparable features. Access & Manage your Library anytime – anywhere (24x7x365)

Multi-Location Enabled Multi-Library Enabled Consortia Ready

Small Library Organizer Pro :Best Library Management Software for Windows users.

Small Library Organizer Pro, v2.8

for Windows 7/Vista/XP/95/98/Me/2000/2003/NT ..

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Library cataloging software for school, private, public, or corporate libraries.

Software Overview
Small Library Organizer Pro: is a complete library management software for Windows. Using this library database system you can easily and quickly organize and manage your library. It's a perfect choice for the following libraries: school library, church library, corporation library, non-profit organization library, business library, specialized library, college or university library,...

catalog library items

manage library members

process check in, check out transactions

library search

This simple library software is designed to manage the following activities of your library:
- catalog, search, and circulate all library collections (books, CDs, video tapes,   dvds, documents, equipments, ..)
- manage member/patron information
- process check in and check out transactions (manually or with a barcode scanner)
- keep track of the library circulation data
- print library labels (spine labels, barcode labels, id cards)
- print library circulation reports, overdue reports
- simple, complex search (OPAC)
- auto cataloging by ISBN number
- process reservation transactions (optional)
- manage fine transactions (optional)

The package has a separate module called Designer. With Designer you can modify Small Library solution or you can build your own.

Software Benefits

• Book Library Software Tour
• Simple, easy-to-use: Ready-to-use database templates and the user-friendly interface let you easily and quickly catalog your library collections (auto catalog by ISBN number supported), organize members of your library, and process check-in and check-out transactions (manual or barcode loan/return transactions supported).
• Quickly access your data: You can access and view your library collections, member/patron database, circulation database in virtually any way: Table Viewer, Browser Viewer, Form Viewer.
• Easily process data: Report Wizard, Label Wizard, HTML Generator Wizard let you create quality, professionally looking documents, book lists, circulation reports, library collection reports, patron/member directories, html library catalogs, address labels, book spine labels, book card labels, barcode labels, reminder letters, and more ....
• Learn once use multiple times: You can use application for all your library database needs. There is no limit on the number of databases or records that you would like to use in our library system. If you decide that you would like to add a library asset tracking database you can easily do it. In addition to the Library Software solution you can download and use free of charge any software solution listed in our solution center. Library extension suggestions are: asset organizer, request organizer, todo organizer, and event organizer....Solution Center for Business and Home
• Save time organizing your records: Results of time consuming tasks or repetitive processes can be saved into templates. Save customized circulation report, bar code labels, book spine labels, and patron directory reports into templates for future reuse.
• Network supported: you can use  library software on a single computer or on the network of computers (multi-user license required).

Try Now / Download
Download free, fully functional trial version. The trial version will expire 45 days after installation. Click here to select the download link Small Library Organizer Pro, software for Windows 7, Vista, XP, 95, 98, ME, 2000, 2003, NT

Get involved with Joomla content management system

Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone.

What's a content management system (CMS)?

A content management system is software that keeps track of every piece of content on your Web site, much like your local public library keeps track of books and stores them. Content can be simple text, photos, music, video, documents, or just about anything you can think of. A major advantage of using a CMS is that it requires almost no technical skill or knowledge to manage. Since the CMS manages all your content, you don't have to.

What are some real world examples of what Joomla! can do?

Joomla is used all over the world to power Web sites of all shapes and sizes. For example:

• Corporate Web sites or portals
• Corporate intranets and extranets
• Online magazines, newspapers, and publications
• E-commerce and online reservations
• Government applications
• Small business Web sites
• Non-profit and organizational Web sites
• Community-based portals
• School and church Web sites
• Personal or family homepages

Joomla is free, open, and available to anyone under the GPL license. Read Getting Started with Joomla to find out the basics then try out  online demo and you'll quickly discover how simple Joomla is. If you're ready to install Joomla, download the latest version here you'll be up and running in no time.