Gerhard Bissels and Andrea Chandler
The purpose of this paper is to describe the further development of the Koha 3.0 library management system (LMS) and the involvement of external software consultants at the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the further development of the Koha 3.0 library management system (LMS) and the involvement of external software consultants at the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Library and Information Service (CAMLIS), Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper takes the form of a report based on internal documentation.
Findings
Since its implementation in winter 2007/8 Koha has grown into an LMS that supports the wide‐ranging needs of a busy and fast‐growing specialist library. CAMLIS had Koha modules modified and added to meet its needs flexibly, using simultaneously both UK‐based consultancy firms with Koha expertise.
Originality/value
This is among the first implementations of Koha in the UK. Experience and conclusions from this installation might influence decisions at other libraries.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to describe the selection process and criteria that led to the implementation of the Koha 3.0 library management system (LMS) at the Complementary and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the selection process and criteria that led to the implementation of the Koha 3.0 library management system (LMS) at the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Library and Information Service (CAMLIS), Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a report based on internal documentation.
Findings
Koha 3.0 was selected because the GNU licence (open source) was considered more future‐proof than proprietary products, and more open to customisation to meet the special needs of the library.
Research limitations/implications
The library is still in the early stages of the LMS implementation. How far the Koha LMS implementation has met the library's needs will only become clear after at least one year's use.
Practical implications
The conclusions drawn from this report relate to the concept of implementing an open source LMS. The author will report on the completed implementation in a year's time.
Originality/value
This is amongst the first implementations of Koha in the UK. Experience and conclusions from this installation might influence decisions at other libraries.
Details
Keywords
Muhammad Naveed, Nusrat Ali, Shakeel Ahmad Khan and Khurram Shahzad
The purpose of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis to discover the published information on the subject of “Library Automation Software.”
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis to discover the published information on the subject of “Library Automation Software.”
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on bibliometric research to analyze the growth of literature on the subject area “Library Automation Software.” The data were retrieved from the leading database Web of Science to analyze the scholarly publications on the topic during 2001–2022. To analyze the bibliometric data on the subject, the VOSviewer, Biblioshiny and MS Excel software were used.
Findings
Results manifest that the topic of “Library Management Systems” has been greatly used by several authors as a title to publish their research work. The USA emerged as the most productive country. The most used keywords to retrieve literature on the topic were “Library Automation,” “Library Management Systems,” “KOHA,” “Integrated Library Systems” and “Open Source Software.”
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first bibliometric study in Pakistan that has been conducted to measure the productivity of literature at the international level on library automation.
Details
Keywords
The critical budgetting month of March is over, and we are at liberty to glance at the general position of libraries in regard to finance. As we anticipated, certain retrenchments…
Abstract
The critical budgetting month of March is over, and we are at liberty to glance at the general position of libraries in regard to finance. As we anticipated, certain retrenchments have been effected in the form of reduced contributions from municipal rates, but while these have been regrettable they have in no case been so drastic as utterly to cripple the libraries involved. The unfortunate circumstance in the matter is the haphazard way in which reductions are made. An example worth quoting of this kind occurred at Ealing, where a councillor moved successfully that the appropriation for libraries be reduced to £1,500, without specifying in what directions economies were to be effected, or troubling himself about the working of a system of libraries upon this manifestly inadequate sum; but, after all, to tilt at haphazard methods is to tilt at British character. Naturally, the old exploded arguments against public libraries were advanced in various discussions, as at Croydon, where a councillor stated that the librarian's hours were spent “in handing novels to servant girls, who had nothing better to do,” a statement which he must have known to be untrue; but such arguments have met with small success, and on the whole the libraries have been supported.
The purpose of this paper is to highlight both the contribution and the present need to reconfigure the literature on “queue culture” as a precursor of the sociology of waiting…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight both the contribution and the present need to reconfigure the literature on “queue culture” as a precursor of the sociology of waiting.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs a legal-structural lens in comparing the initial conceptual treatment of the archetypal “waiting line” with the “line” modifying sociology of waiting that results in waiting rooms, number and telephone queues and in the experience of online waiting.
Findings
The initial conception of the culture of the queue understates the importance of three factors: first, the role of third parties in the design, management and inculcation of rules binding those experiencing thick time; second the degree to which communication technology and its attachment to the “mobilities” paradigm has thinned the experience of thick time and lastly the degree to which the increasing commodification of the wait has resulted in the creation of waiting time as a form of pay as you go flexitime.
Social implications
The social construction of waiting and the experience of thick time are shown to be increasingly part of the privatized market experience where queue management innovations not only are commercialized but have strong implications for the egalitarian social assumptions imbedded in the initial queue culture based sociology of waiting. Policy implications support the present pay for use philosophy increasingly applied in the transition from public to private management of space.
Originality/value
The self-policing “fairness” of the waiting line is now open to scrutiny given the proliferation of the newly shaped distributional logics imbedded in the management, design and use of waiting spaces.