Today everybody in all field and profession talk about Information Technology (IT) which has demonstrated its impact for their use and it’s also the same thing happen in the library which IT has proven their impact in library environment such as library resource, systems, services and operation and also provided one of the best innovations in the history of libraries and it is changing the shape of libraries and role of librarians at an unprecedented pace. By using IT allows an integration of various library operations and activities, increases efficiency in acquisitions, access and retrieve the data, cataloguing, classification information retrieval and dissemination. It can reduce uninteresting and repetitive work helps to avoid duplications of efforts, increase the current issue and full text archive of this journal is available range of services, provides marketing opportunities, and facilitates cooperation and the formulation of networks and resources sharing in libraries. By using these technologies will enable users to have remote access and privileges to information and data from a variety of places, provide more up-to-date information and rapidly access to information also to bibliographic and full-text data and in the same time provide unlimited information from different sources and facilitate the reformatting and combining of data from different sources.
Even though this seems to be very fundamental it is essential to emphasize this aspect as the library automation is yet to take off in majority of the libraries. While justifying need for library automation more than cost-effectiveness the benefits derived by the library users become the major consideration. Since library does not happen to be an economic entity such benefits need to be looked at in a different perspective. To appreciate the advantages it becomes necessary to highlight the different levels of library automation.
The library catalogue or index to the collection forms the base for most of the library activities such as acquisition, reference, bibliographic service, inter-library loan etc. The users of library card catalogue will appreciate how fast the retrieval is, search and printing in automated environment. If the same system is available in network environment, users can have simultaneous access to the same database. From the library staff point of view the cumbersome job of printing the cards and their subsequent filing gets eliminated. Also, it conserves space and saves stationary.
The second level automation will be to use software which can handle all the library operations such as acquisition, circulation and serial control thus creating a network within the library or becoming part of the existing network of the institution. Networking of computers within an organization helps the users to browse the cataloguing system from any of the workstation/ terminal.
Another technology which has revolutionized the information world is the development of internet. Subscribers of internet, in addition to getting access to various public domain databases and services, will also get free e-mail and fax facility. Some publishers have started giving content pages of journals and libraries having subscription to such journals can also have full text of the articles. Many academic and research institutes have given free access to their working papers.
The revamp context of library technology provides new working style for librarians to apply familiar skills. Library automation is a relatively new in Malaysian and surely special libraries are seemingly ahead in the application. In order to capitalize on these new opportunities, librarians will need to be trained to take a broader view of traditional skills-reference and cataloging and understand new technologies. To achieve the national objectives to make sure that IT must be fully use in the working environment, a professional IT workforce must be nurtured to face the challenges of the Information Age. It also includes information skills that teach the technique to seek, retrieve, evaluate and use the variety of electronic information currently available.
The library and school environment is ideal for the teaching of those skills. Information-related activities should be centered on the library which can be further enhanced for information-based skills teaching and learning through the implementation of an automated library system. Although automating the libraries in the country might seem a problematic undertaking, the use of a cheap and relatively simple system can make it feasible. In this context, it is important that the education IT strategy must embody a long-term plan to automate the libraries which can contribute towards both the objectives of creating an information-rich Malaysian society and of national development.
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