IMPACT OF ICT ON TECHNICAL SERVICES

BADARU AYO & OYEGUNLE JOHN

Introduction

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) have transformed Library and Information services globally. The Internet has provided universal access to information. Technological innovation has dramatically increased the rate of conversion of knowledge, information and data into electronic format. Developments in the software arena has generated powerful knowledge management software which has transformed the way knowledge is organized, stored, accessed and retrieved (Tam & Robertson, 2002:2).  

Libraries have always been repositories of learning resources. From earliest time, they have provided access to information for scholars and researchers. The constantly increasing amount of information been generated and published, the expanding formats of information storage and retrieval, and ever changing education and research needs of library users make it difficult for any library to be an effective learning resources.

The primary role of the library is to provide information service to support the educational, recreation, cultural, economic and technological endeavors of members in their respective communities. The National Policy on Education (2004) identified the library as one of the most important aspect of educational support services, although not visible, technical services is considered the central department to the library, its operations and services are so crucial that it is safe to say that a library without technical services department is dead.

Technical services department activities require not only special training to accomplish but also a good understanding is needed to use most of its services.  Each of the functions of the technical services department plays a major role in the effective and smooth running of the library, this call for taking to cognizance the difference between library routines and technical services.

Literature Review

Technical services in libraries have been identified as “service involving the operations and techniques for acquiring, recording and preserving materials (Tauber, 1954).  Tauber goes on to define “service” as all the work connected with some activity such as acquisitions.

Technical services are those services that provide access to information existing in some published form (Horny, 1980).  She divides access into two components:

a.       Physical:  This is created through the process of acquiring, organizing and labeling information packages.

b.      Bibliographic Access:  This requires the creation of the descriptive and subject tags that allow the eventual users to select the information package needed.

According to (J. Barkett, S. Ritchie & A. Standley, 1978), technical services in the academic library include:

-Acquisition of library resources

-Cataloguing and Classification

-Serials

-Preservation of materials

-Authority Control: 

-Bibliographic Control

Rana (2009) opines that ICT holds the key to the success of modernizing information services. Applications of ICT are numerous but mainly it is used in converting the existing paper-print records in the entire process of storage, retrieval and dissemination.

UNESCO defines Information Technology as

“The scientific, technological and engineering disciplines and the managerial techniques used in

Information handling and processing; their applications; computers and their interaction with men and machines and associated social, economic and cultural matters” (Peltu,1982)1. In short

ICT on LIS means as the application of computers and communication technologies to the acquisition, organization, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information process.

Convergence of computer and communication technologies and their subsequent application to library and information activities has changed the philosophy of information from unitary to universal access.

Cockrane (1992) identified the following reasons for the introduction of ICT in libraries:

i The failure of the existing traditional methods to cope effectively with ever increasing volume in the library.

ii To allow for easy integration of various activities in the library .

iii Increase in library activities, that is organization and services .

Concept of Technical Services

Technical services can be considered as one of the oldest aspects of librarianship.  Services involving the operations and techniques for acquiring, recording and preserving materials are among the oldest aspects of librarianship (Tauber, 1954).

The term “technical services” is comparatively recent in origin as (Turtle, 1976) traces the history of technical services in academic and research libraries from 1876 to 1976.  The concept of technical services including acquisition and processing functions was first proposed in published form in paper by (Coney, 1939) at the University of Chicago.

Major technical services functions given by (J. Barkett, S. Ritchie & A. Standley, 1978) include:

-Acquisition of library resources:  The technical service offered in the library begins with acquisition of library resources i.e. acquisition is the starting point for technical services. “Stock” in this context includes all kinds of resources both print and non-print used for satisfaction of information needs.

Stock acquisition is usually exclusive to professional librarians   Acquisition of library stock usually involves an acquisition policy.  The acquisition policy is a stated course of action used in selection of materials to be acquired; this is usually agreed upon (J. Barkett, S. Ritchie & A. Standley 1978).

-Cataloguing and Classification:  The cataloguing and classification services are the major organization functions that are performed in the technical services.  The important factor here is

 “Making available” (J. Barkett, S. Ritchie & A. Standley, 1978).

After acquisition, materials become unorganized and patrons will definitely find it difficult to retrieve the material.  Cataloguing and classification through its techniques make it possible for information retrieval, as the aim of every library is to obtain preserve and make available the resources (J. Barkett, S. Ritchie & A. Standley, 1978).

-Serials:  A serial is defined in AACR2 as “a publication in any medium issued in successive parts bearing numerical or chronological designators and intended to be continued indefinitely.

 Serials in technical services department include journals, articles, government periodicals, memoirs.  Technical services also deal in the acquisition, cataloguing (using kardex cards). 

-Preservation of materials:  Preservation of materials is seen as the activities involved in keeping library materials.  Morrow (1979) provides and an excellent outline.  Although not specifically a formula for developing policy, Darling and Webster (1987), provides a step by step review of typical preservation needs within a library:

-Care and handling of materials

-Guidelines for binding and preservation

-Need for disaster planning

-A cautionary statement about acquiring material in need for repair

-The need for staff education

-Desirable environmental conditions.

A major part of preservation of materials is Bindery.  In some libraries, bindery consists of a unit under the technical services department.  A large proportion of a university library intake is of foreign or old materials, this often involves binding or resources (Thompson, 1932).  According to Morrow (1979), there is no standard organization for binding operations in libraries.

-Authority Control:  Library authority files are a record of the authorized or established form of heading or access points used in the catalogue.  Authority record contains the established form of the heading, cross references made in relation to the heading, sources searched for verification of the heading (J. Barkett, S. Ritchie & A. Standley, 1978). 

-Bibliographic Control:  As we enter the 1990s bibliographic control is in a state of transition in most academic library as many are involved in implementing online system and rapidly moving from card catalog to the online catalogue.  Bibliographic control is one of the major functions of the technical services department as they are in charge of preparation of catalogues which contain bibliographic information (J. Barkett, S. Ritchie & A. Standley, 1978).  

Concept of Information and Communication Technology

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is an umbrella term that includes all technologies for the manipulation and communication of information. The term is sometimes used in preference to Information Technology (IT).

Information and communication technology (ICT) has been defined by various scholars from different perspectives. Ayodele (2002) defined ICT as electronic based technology generally used to retrieve store, process and package information as well as provide access to knowledge. Aluko (2004) also described ICT as enabling technologies (both hardware and software) necessary for delivery of voice/audio, data (high speed and low speed) video, fax and internet services from point A to point B (or possibly to multiply B C etc) using wired and wireless media protocol (IP) and non IP networks.

 To Nwachukwu (2004) information and communication technologies (ICTs) is the application of computers and other technologies to the acquisition, organization, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information. However, in this context, information and communication technology is the use of electronic devices such as computers, telephones, internet, satellite system, to store, retrieve and disseminate information in the form of data, text image and others.

Information and Communication Technology Facilities in the Library

The development and availability of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in libraries have today not only increased and broadened the impact of information resources at their doorsteps, but also placed more emphasis on effective and efficient services. Their applications in libraries, commonly known as library automation, have indeed continued to ease and promote quick and timely access to and transfer of information resources that are found dispensed round the globe.

 ICT enables one:

a. To capture, store, manipulate, and distribute information;

b. To introduce and provide new services, revitalize the existing services by providing faster access to the resources, by overcoming the space and time barriers;

c. To provide need-based, (tailor made), browsing and retrospective search services to the users; to have large number of databases in CDs;

e. To utilize the staff for providing better information services;

f. To develop/upgrade the abilities of professionals;

g. To encourage networking and resource sharing at local level;

h. To have access to a number of national and international journals which are being published only in machine readable form;

i. To digitize the documents for preservation and for space saving;

j. To support library functions such as circulation, serials control, acquisition control, stock

maintenance and other routine office works and developing in-house database;

k. To retrieve and disseminate the information in user-defined format;

l. To access library catalogues databases of other libraries through library networks;

m. To improve the efficiency of library functions; and

n. To improve the cost effectiveness of library operations.

Impact of ICT on Technical Services

Nwankwo (2006), opines that ICTs application to library works and services could be seen as the best way that could be used to assist researchers to adequately solve their literature need for effective research activities. This, according to the writer, is because the application of ICT to library operations greatly helps in the provision of efficient reference and information services, the utilization of network operations such as cataloguing, authority control, inter library loans and co-operation and in the participation of international bibliographic project.

The use of ICT has impacted on technical services according to Igbeka (2008), Adebisi (2009) and Uwaifo (2010) in the following ways:

1.      Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC): It is the computer form of library catalogue to access

materials in the library.

2.      Storage Capacity: Digital libraries have the potential to store much more information, since it

requires very little space to contain it.

3.      Preservation and Conservation: An exact copy of the original can be made any number of

times without any degradation in quality.

Cataloguing and Catalogs

Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) is a great relief to users of the library catalogue in the sense that, different users can search for the same information at the same time using different terminals which is impossible through the traditional card catalogue. Also, users can search the online library catalogue through ISSN, ISBN, and combination of title and author etc. Overdue notices are generated and sent to users through their e-mails.

The card catalog which was replaced in the early 1990s has itself been replaced with a Web-based interface. This means that the maintenance of the information, typically handled by library support staff, has to be accurate and the level of sophistication and technical expertise to handle the amount of information added to the library’s own knowledge base increases yearly as the capacity to store and access information has increased. Also important to note, the online catalog is accessible from anywhere as it is a web-based catalog.

Acquisition of library resources

With the help of web, acquisition work has become very much simplified. Order placing, duplication checking, price checking etc are done very effectively using ICT technique. Online bookshops and publisher’s websites save the time of the librarians. For the procurement of journals, order is placed in the prescribed format to the publishers through Internet. Invoices can be downloaded from the websites that makes service faster and avoids postal delay. E-mail helps in sending reminders to the publishers, vendors and even to the borrowers of the books. IT also helps in the process of the serial control in the university library. It helps in preparing union list of serials and helps in circulating via e-mail to the branch libraries.

New Addition Alert Service

Provides alert service to the users including the staff. List of new additions in the library is compiled and E-mailed to user community regularly. This service is the major impact of ICT in technical section.

Collection Development

Collection development can be defined as the selection and acquisition of library materials based on current and potential user needs. Collection management goes beyond this. It is concerned with managing the utilization, storage and accessibility of a collection. Collection development can thus be seen as a subdivision of collection management (Singh, 2004:1).

Although, ICT in its capacity aids collection development by providing a wider range of information resources to choose from, it also impacts the collection development process of library negatively.

Academic librarians find themselves in an era of unparalleled access to information. The latest edition of Uhlrich’s has indicated the availability of more than 172 000 journal titles. Although this appears to be a most ideal situation it is not because the financial resources available in acquisitions departments have not necessarily increased. The sheer volume of information available also makes selection of the most suitable information a complex task (Fisher, 2003:463).

The impact of electronic resources has made collection management a very complex and challenging task. There are budgetary constraints, numerous formats, ever changing user needs. Collection management implies involvement in tasks such as analysis of needs, negotiation of contracts and evaluation of resources (Singh, 2004:4).

Digital preservation of data

One of the major costs facing the academic library is the cost related to the conversion and preservation of information in digital format. This does not include the cost relating to the annotation for indexing purposes and the cost of conversion of audio-visual material. One of the problems with converting records into digital image is the fact that the technology used to store these pages as a digital photograph results in large files which have storage implications and place demands on band-with (Wood & Walther, 2000:175).

Funding allocated to preservation of digital material is generally inadequate. This has to do with expectations that the costs of digital preservation over length of time might be very high. It is also difficult to forecast cost in terms of how long to retain digital material in an archive and computer architectures needed to access material (Lavoie & Dempsey, 2004:5). Preservation of digital materials poses many challenges. It is further complicated by the fact that computer technology changes at an unprecedented rate.

Bibliographic Service

Compilation of bibliographies, reading lists and state-of-art reports are very parts of LIS work, particularly in research and academic libraries. Browsing through the manual indexes and abstracts is a tedious and time consuming work, and does not always produce up to date result. Availability of databases in electronic form on CDROM or online, offers convenient, efficient and cost effective information retrieval. Electronic databases also provide unique search features such as searching on multiple criteria (key-word, subject, author, source, classification code, year of publication, language etc.), and variety of display formats & styles.

Advance features like natural language query ranking the search results in also available in many databases. Web based services facilitate full text searches and link to full text of the documents. Dialog, STN and Silver Platter are some of the popular database companies that offer bibliographic and reference databases on CDROM and Online platforms.

Possible Solution to aiding ICT Integration in Technical Services

1. Government should endeavour to vote huge amount of money for ICT infrastructural development

in libraries.

2. There should be training and retraining for library staff at all level in respect of use of ICT.

3. The concept of e-library should be revitalized in Nigeria libraries.

4. All taxes on ICT resources should be removed. Also where possible there prices should be subsielized.

5. ICT equipment should be service regularly by expert, fault should be promptly connected.

Conclusion

Despite the challenges facing the availability and usability of ICTs in Nigerian libraries, librarians and

Authorities in various institutions must find means of making the facilities and resources discussed in this paper available to their users. It may be noted that if the libraries are provided with the various ICT facilities by the various authorizes with adequate funds cum power supply, users and staff of the libraries will utilize the resources. Staffs that are not ICT complaint may be shown the way out if they refused to change for better.

Technical services although coming with its challenges, has impacted technical services in positive ways.  The 21^st century library undoubtedly cannot do without ICT and its components.

References

Darling P.W. & Webster D.E. (1987). Presentation planning program: An assisted self study manual for libraries (rev. ed.). Washington DC: Association of research libraries, office of management studies.

Fisher, W. (2003). Now you see it; now you don’t: the elusive nature of electronic information. Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services, 27(4), 463-472.

Horny, K.L. (1987). Fifteen years of automation:  Education of technical services staffing.  Library resources and technical services: 31(1); 69-76.

Igbeka (2008), Adebisi (2009) and Uwaifor (2010) Enumerated the Impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Library Operations and Services thus: from pp. 2-8

J. Barkett, S. Ritchie and A. Standley (1978).  Library Practice: a manual and textbook. Washington DC.

Morrow C.C. (1979).  The conservation policy statement of research libraries; Occasional paper (No. 139). Urbana: University of Illinois, Graduate School of Library Science.

Nwankwo, A.N. (2006) The Need for ICT Education for Effective Library Work and Services, paper presented at the 2006 Department of Library and Information Science Seminar, 5th – 10th February.

Singh, S.P. (2004). Collection management in the electronic environment. The Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances, 17(2). [Online]. Available http://www.emeraldinsight.com.

Tauber, M.F. (1954). Technical services in libraries; New York: Columbia University Press.

Wood, P.A. & Walther, J.H. (2000). The future of academic libraries: changing formats and changing delivery. The Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances, 13(4). [Online]. Available: http://www.emeraldinsight.com.