CHAPTER – III

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

SKILLS: AN OVERVIEW

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3.0 Introduction

Technology is transforming the nature of libraries and librarians and it continues

to exert a huge impact on the strategic directions of libraries in society. Nowadays, the

library services are changing from local collections to global resources provided on

demand via the most advanced networking technologies. Libraries in general and health

science libraries in particular are challenged to provide greater information access and

improved level of service, while coping with the pace of technological change and ever-

increasing budget pressure. As a result information professional librarians must be

computer literate and knowledgeable about information technology in order to render

quality services to patrons.

An attempt is made in this chapter to delineate the information technology skills

considered in this study. Information technology skills for the purpose of the present

study are as follows:

� Basic principles concerning automated systems, data standards, and

system analysis techniques including design and evaluation;

� Acquisition, use, and evaluation of information technologies;

� Integration of systems and technologies;

� Technological solutions for permanent access to electronic information;

� Applications of emerging areas of biomedicine computational biology and

health information, including electronic health care systems and records;

� Communication and information infrastructure including the Internet and

Web;

� Assess, select and apply current and emerging information tools and create

information access and delivery solutions;

� Apply expertise in databases and information analysis and synthesis to

improve information retrieval and use in the organization

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3.1 Basic Principles Concerning Automated Systems, Data Standards, and System

Analysis Techniques

This section deals with basic principles of automated systems including, power of

source, feedback controls, and machine programming; library automation, integrated

library management systems including Easylib, LibSys, Nosa and Pars Azarakhsh

software packages; and information retrieval systems such as CDSISIS.

3.1.1 Basic Principles of Automated Systems

There are three basic building blocks of automation: (1) a source of power to

perform some action, (2) feedback controls, and (3) machine programming. Almost

without exception, an automated system will exhibit all these elements (Britannica CD,

1995).

3.1.1.1 Power Source

An automated system is designed to accomplish some useful action, and that

action requires power. There are many sources of power available, but the most

commonly used power in today's automated systems is electricity. The actions performed

by automated systems are generally of two types: (1) processing and (2) transfer and

positioning. In the first case, energy is applied to accomplish some processing operation

on some entity. In automated communications and information systems, the terms

transfer and positioning refer to the movement of data (or electrical signals) among

various processing units and the delivery of information to output terminals (printers,

video display units, etc.) for interpretation and use by humans. (Britannica CD, 1995)

3.1.1.2 Feedback Controls

Feedback controls are widely used in modern automated systems. A feedback

control system consists of five basic components: (1) input, (2) process being controlled,

(3) output, (4) sensing elements, and (5) controller and actuating devices.

The input to the system is the reference value, or set point, for the system output.

This represents the desired operating value of the output. The sensing elements are the

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measuring devices used in the feedback loop to monitor the value of the output variable.

The purpose of the controller and actuating devices in the feedback system is to compare

the measured output value with the reference input value and to reduce the difference

between them. (Britannica CD, 1995)

3.1.1.3 Machine Programming

The programmed instructions determine the set of actions that is to be

accomplished automatically by the system. The program specifies what the automated

system should do and how its various components must function in order to accomplish

the desired result. (Britannica CD, 1995)

3.1.2 Library Automation

Library automation refers to the use of automatic machine or processing devices

in the libraries. The automation may be applied to library administrative activities, office

procedures, and delivery of library services to the users. (Biology online dictionary,

2006). According to Marimuthu and Paraman (2011, p. 11) Library automation means

not only entering and reading data on the computer, but the different functional areas of a

library also should be automated.

3.1.2.1 Integrated Library Management Systems

An integrated library Management system, or ILMS, is an enterprise resource

planning system for a library used to track items owned, orders made, bills paid, and

patrons who have borrowed. An ILMS is usually comprised of a relational database,

software to act on that database, and two graphical user interfaces (one for patrons, one

for staff). Most ILMS separate software functions into discrete programs called modules,

which are then integrated into a unified interface. Examples of modules include:

acquisitions (ordering, receiving, and invoicing materials), cataloging (classifying and

indexing materials), circulation (lending materials to patrons and receiving them back),

serials (tracking magazine and newspaper holdings), and the OPAC (New World

Encyclopedia, 2009). Examples of ILMSs are EasyLib, and Libsys in India and Pars

Azarakhsh and Nosa in Iran.

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3.1.2.1.1 EasyLib Software

Easylib Library Software is one of the best Library Software available in India.

With nearly 400 Clients throughout India, it is now well proven software for Library

Automation. (Linkedin, 2011)

3.1.2.1.2 LibSys Software

LibSys is an integrated multiuser library management software, that caters to the

needs of an advanced library and information professionals. It provides a tree structure

system with each system comprising of several sub-systems having unmatchable depth in

functionality. It has a powerful and user-friendly Web-OPAC along with Windows-based

OPAC. It runs on various platforms such as WINDOWS (95/98/NT/2000/XP), UNIX

(various flavors), LINUXM, etc. Further, it adheres to standards such as MARC and

Z39.50 that makes it suitable for cooperative networking and resource sharing (Indian

Institute of Management-Calcutta, 2011).

3.1.2.1.3 Paras Azarakhsh and Nosa Software

Nosa and Pars Azarakhsh are commercial software available in Iran that are

programmed for data processing in both Persian and English languages and easy to look

after in terms of vendor support. (Davarpanah, 2003)

3.1.3 Information Retrieval Systems

An information retrieval system is a system that is capable of storage, retrieval,

and maintenance of information. Information in this context can be composed of text

(including numeric and date data), image, audio, video, and other multi-media objects.

(Kowalski, p. 2, 1997).

3.1.3.1 CDS/ISIS

CDS/ISIS (Computerized Documentation Systems/ Integrated Set of Information

Systems) is an Integrated Storage and Information retrieval System of United Nations

Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is widely used

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throughout the world especially in Latin America and Africa for creating metadata

management systems. There are hundreds of CDS/ISIS based application systems

managing bibliographical reference ensuring high quality content through the use of

built-in authority files, data entry guidelines and validations. (Kaloyanova, Betti, and

Keizer, 2008)

3.1.4 Bibliographic Utilities

An organization that maintains a database of bibliographic descriptions for use by

organizations and individuals for purposes of access, cataloging, circulation, and

management. These utilities grew out of cooperative cataloging projects in libraries,

allowing one library to catalog a book and other libraries to use that record in their

catalog. The utilities were able to exploit the information in the database to provide

interlibrary loan services to member libraries and to provide subscribers the ability to

search for works across many libraries' holdings. Two prominent utilities are OCLC and

RLIN (Pearce-Moses, 2005).

3.1.4.1OCLC (Online Computer Library Center)

OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research

organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s

information and reducing information costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 170 countries

and territories around the world have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend

and preserve library materials. (OCLC, 2011) OCLC has products and services

3.1.4.2 LocatorPlus

LocatorPlus is the National Library of Medicine (NLM) online catalog available

at http://locatorplus.gov. LocatorPlus is continuously updated and includes:

� Computer files, and other materials in the Library's collections

� Holdings information for journals and other materials

� Links from catalog records to Internet resources, including online journals

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� Circulation status information for materials, including those on-order or in-

process at the Library

LocatorPlus is one component of NLM's integrated library system, Voyager.

(National Library of Medicine, 2009)

3.1.5 Data Standards

Standards are mutually agreed-upon statements that help control an action or

product. Data standards promote the consistent recording of information and are

fundamental to the efficient exchange of information. They provide the rules for

structuring information, so that the data entered into a system can be reliably read, sorted,

indexed, retrieved, communicated between systems, and shared. They help protect the

long-term value of data. There are at least four data standards: data structure, data

content, data value, and data communication standards. (Visual Resources Association,

1997).

3.1.5.1 Data Structure Standards

Data structure standards are concerned with the definition of a record and the

relationship of the fields within it. The MARC (MAchine Readable Cataloging) format is

a good example, although it is really a hybrid of a data structure and an information

exchange standard. (Visual Resources Association, 1997).

3.1.5.2 Data Content Standards

Data content standards are the rules for how data are entered, for example

cataloging rules and syntax conventions. Examples of this are the Anglo-American

Cataloguing Rules (AACR2), Graphic Materials: Rules for Describing Original Items and

Historical Collections by Elisabeth Betz Parker, and the Art and Architecture Thesaurus

(AAT) Application Protocol, which suggests protocols for combining individual AAT

terms to form headings or strings for indexing. (Visual Resources Association, 1997).

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3.1.5.3 Data Value Standards

Date value standards usually take the form of controlled vocabularies, including

subject specific-terminologies and authorities for names and places (Visual Resources,

1997). Well-known examples include the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH),

and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). (Visual Resources Association, 1997)

3.1.6 Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)

The LCSH schema was originally designed as a controlled vocabulary for

describing books and other materials in the Library of Congress (LOC) collection. LCSH

are a list of pre-coordinated terms that are proposed by catalogers to represent all items in

the Library of Congress (LOC) and are based on literary warrant. Besides representing

materials in library collections, the LCSH have a dual purpose of providing information

seekers access to information on any subject and to provide material on related topics

(Wynar, 1985).

3.1.7 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

MeSH is the National Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary thesaurus. It

consists of sets of terms naming descriptors in a hierarchical structure that permits

searching at various levels of specificity. MeSH descriptors are arranged in both an

alphabetic and a hierarchical structure. The MeSH thesaurus is used by NLM for

indexing articles from 5,400 of the world's leading biomedical journals for the

MEDLINE/PubMED database. It is also used for the NLM-produced database that

includes cataloging of books, documents, and audiovisuals acquired by the Library.

(National Library of Medicine, 2011)

3.1.8 Z39.50

Z39.50 is a standard that defines a protocol to support the searching and retrieval

of information across networks. This information can be in a whole range of formats such

as full text documents, bibliographic data, images or multimedia. For this reason, Z39.50

is often thought of as a library standard. Although not the only sector using Z39.50 (it is

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also used by museums, government and those working with geospatial data records), the

library community is by far the oldest and most established user. (Taylor, 2003)

3.1.9 Resource Description Framework (RDF)

RDF is a general framework for describing metadata of Internet resources and for

processing this metadata; it is a standard of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). RDF

supports the interoperability between applications that exchange machine-understandable

information on the web. (Xing, Dikaiakos, Yang, Sphyris, and Eftichidis, 2005)

3.1.10 Dublin Core (DC)

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) is a standard metadata schema for

describing electronic records, documents and web resources. Without metadata, searching

the Internet or our corporate repositories would be similar to looking for a needle in a

haystack. Dublin Core (DC) metadata was developed by the Dublin Core Metadata

Initiative (DCMI). DCMI had its beginnings in 1995 in Dublin, Ohio, where the first of

the DC series workshops was held. Workshop participants came together to address the

pressing need for development in the description, organization, and discovery of

networked information resources (DCMI, 2001). This led to preparing 15 metadata

elements called Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) to enrich the descriptive,

semantic and interoperability aspects of web resources. These elements are: title, creator,

subject, description, publisher, contributor, date, type, format, identifier, source,

language, relation, coverage, and rights, respectively (Saadat Alijani and Jowkar, 2009)

3.1.11 MARC (Machine Readable Cataloguing)

MARC is often described as an international standard that is used for any type of

information material bibliographic description. The purpose of that format is the

distribution of catalogue data using new computer technology and networks. While

MARC has been employed in developed countries for decades, it is only comparatively

recently that computer uptake and the extension of the internet in developing countries

has meant that MARC is being used (Ghaebi, Shamsbod and Karimi-Mansoorabad,

2010)

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3.1.12 AACR2 (Anglo- American Cataloguing Rules)

AACR2 is an internationally accepted standard for descriptive cataloging. It

contains rules for describing and providing access to all types of library materials

including books, serials, computer files, maps, music, motion pictures, etc., through

library catalogs. AACR2 is also a standard for structuring catalogs with headings and

references to provide links between items with similar or related characteristics. (El-

Sherbini and Klim, 2004)

3.2 System Analysis

Systems analysis is an explicit formal inquiry carried out to help someone

(referred to as the decision maker) identify a better course of action and make a better

decision than he might otherwise have made. The characteristic attributes of a problem

situation where systems analysis is called upon are complexity of the issue and

uncertainty of the outcome of any course of action that might reasonably be taken.

Systems analysis usually has some combination of the following: identification and re-

identification) of objectives, constraints, and alternative courses of action; examination of

the probable consequences of the alternatives in terms of costs, benefits,

and risks; presentation of the results in a comparative framework so that the decision

maker can make an informed choice from among the alternatives. (Web Dictionary of

Cybernetics and Systems, 2000)

3.3 Skills in Acquisition, Use, and Evaluation of Information Technologies

One of the aims of evaluating information technologies is to address the added

value and increased quality provided by the provision of them. Here transaction log

analysis and electronic resource management/assessment systems are discussed as means

of evaluating electronic resource usage in libraries.

3.3.1 Transaction Log Analysis

A transaction log is an electronic record of interactions that have occurred between

a system and users of that system. These log files can come from a variety of computers

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and systems (Websites, OPAC, user computers, blogs, listserv, online newspapers, etc.),

basically any application that can record the user – system – information interactions

(Jansen, Taksa, and Spink, 2009). Transaction log analysis is the methodological

approach to studying online systems and users of these systems. Peters (1993) defines

transaction log analysis as the study of electronically recorded interactions between

persons who search for information found in those systems.

3.3.2 Electronic Resource Assessment Systems (ERAS)

Usage analysis, in contrast to citation analysis, is an emerging area of bibliometric

research. Although impact factor (IF) is a widely accepted metric for determining the

value of a journal, ISI coverage of journals is not comprehensive and is only a segment of

the journals published in each discipline. Electronic resource assessment systems are used

for usage analysis. They can provide libraries with a different and potentially more

complete perspective on the scholarly impact of electronic resources than citation data

alone can provide (Xu, 2010). Since 1998, the library community has been requesting

that electronic resource vendors comply with the International Coalition of Library

Consortia (ICOLC) guidelines for statistical measures of usage.

3.3.2.1 Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER)

In 2002, the project Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources

(COUNTER) Codes of Practice emerged as an organised effort to standardise how the

elements are counted in database vendors usage report. Building upon the previous

initiatives, particularly the ICOLC guidelines, COUNTER aims to develop a Code of

Practice that will ensure that the tools for measuring electronic resources will provide

results that are consistent, credible, and compatible (COUNTER, 2009). With the project

COUNTER Codes of Practice, vendors can provide libraries with reliable, accurate, and

standardised usage reports. Several private sector vendors developed commercial

electronic resource assessment systems, such as USAS (Ulrich’s Serials Analysis

System), ScholarlyStats, Journal Use Reports (JUR), 360 Counter, and Scholarly iQ,

which complemented the initiative of homegrown systems (Xu, 2010).

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3.3.2.2 Ulrich’s Serials Analysis System (USAS)

USAS was developed by R R Bowker in January 2003. USAS is the first

evaluative service to provide collection analysis criteria specifically for serials. USAS

allows libraries to upload their current print and electronic serials and then analyse them

according to Ulrich’s subject categories and evaluative data for making collection

decisions. (Serials Solutions, 2010).

3.3.2.3 ScholarlyStats

In January 2006, MPS Technologies, a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd,

introduced ScholarlyStats to the library community (Collins, 2006). ScholarlyStats is a

web-based portal, which provides libraries with online access to their aggregated

COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) reports for

journals and databases by streamlining the data collection and consolidation process (Xu,

2010).

3.3.2.4 Journal Use Reports (JUR)

In 2006, Thomson Scientific launched JUR, which brings COUNTER-compliant

use statistics, publication activity, and citation metrics into a single interface for an

institution (Brown and Dumouchel, 2007; Chernyi, 2009). JUR is comprised of several

data sets, including journal influence from JCR (Journal Citation Report), institutional

publication and citation activity from Web of Science that can tell in which journals the

authors at a local institution publish and which journals they rely on most to support their

published research, and COUNTER-compliant usage data (Liu, 2007).

3.3.2.5 360 Counter

In November 2007, Serials Solutions, a business unit of ProQuest Information and

Learning, announced the launch of the 360 Counter e-resource assessment service. 360

Counter helps libraries evaluate the usage and cost of e-resources to optimise the value of

electronic collections (Serials Solutions, 2007). Like ScholarlyStats, 360 Counter is a

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web-based portal that offers libraries online access to their aggregated COUNTER

reports for journals and databases (Xu, 2010).

3.3.2.6 Scholarly iQ

In June 2009, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) announced an

enhanced web analytics platform for library communities to create custom reports that

comply with COUNTER standards. The new platform, provided by Scholarly iQ

(www.scholarlyiq.com/), enables librarians to access usage statistics and receive timely

accurate COUNTER usage reports for measuring online usage of scholarly journals (Xu,

2010).

3.4 Integration of Systems and Technologies

Integration of systems and technologies refers to the melding of systems and new

technologies to form more capable systems that are intended to take on additional tasks,

exhibit improved performance or enhance existing systems (California State University,

2011). A typical academic library will likely offer at least half a dozen different Web-

based applications, each providing a specialized service. Each of these applications may

come from a different vendor. Web-based services offered by a library might include the

online catalog of its automation system, an interlibrary loan or document delivery system,

an OpenURL-based reference linking environment, a meta search interface, electronic

reserves, a virtual reference service, remote patron authentication, and/or local digital

library collections, as well as a plethora of subscriptions to citation databases, full-text

resources, and electronic journals. Having such a variety of services and resources

increases the complexity of the overall environment, and makes it harder to integrate

everything into an environment that appears simple to the users (Breeding 2004).

3.4.1Content Development

Content Development or Website Content Development is the act of preparing

and developing your website's content to ensure that it is properly setup, crawled, and

indexed by the search engines. Content Development is a major element of SEO (Search

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Engine Optimization) and requires close attention to ensure the success of your website

(Hudson Horizons: Web Site design and development company, 2011).

3.4.1.1 Library Portals

Library Portals are a subset of Web portals and serve specific research

communities. Available for some time now, library portals typically provide a gateway to

an institution’s resources by listing them for users and creating a direct link to the native

interface of each resource. Such listings are available on most library Web sites today,

although many sites provide only alphabetic listings. (Sadeh and Walker, 2003)

3.4.1.2 Intranet

A private network based on the TCP/IP protocol suite and designed to provide

access to information resources within a company, university, or other organization.

Designed to look much like a site on a private World Wide Web (WWW) and based on

the same protocols, an intranet supports familiar client/server software such as browsers

and e-mail (Your dictionary, 2011). Several researchers reported application of Intranet

in knowledge and content management, resource sharing, and reference services

(Delaney, 1999; Engel and Bierman, 2006; Mphidi and Snyman, 2004; Pandian,

Jambhekar, and Karisiddappa, 2002; Robbins, Engel and Bierman, 2006).

3.4.1.3 VLE (Virtual Learning Environment)

VLEs began to appear in the second half of the 1990s. They were initially non-

web-based – and some still are. Gradually, the Web is taking over as the dominant form,

for obvious reasons. The main advantage in developing courses on the Web, however, is

the ability to link resources in from elsewhere on an intranet or the Internet. One of the

leading VLEs in Higher Education (HE) at the present time is WebCT (www.webct.com)

which was developed originally in the University of British Columbia and gained a

significant foothold in the academic market initially in North America because of its

understanding of the needs of university courses (Maccoll, 2001). In general, these

applications offer a common range of functions, which comprise the following basic set:

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� e-mail to allow broadcasting of messages to the course group, and

individual

� dialogue between students and tutors;

� alerting;

� calendar/scheduling, to accommodate timetabling information;

� a structure to facilitate course and module description;

� a facility to permit other web resources to be linked in;

� assessment tools (typically shells which permit multiple choice tests to

be developed).

3.4.1.4 Learning Objects (LO)

Learning objects can be defined as: “Any digital resource that can be reused to

support learning”. Because learning objects are in digital formats, they are deliverable

over the Internet and therefore accessible by any number of people. A learning object can

be a single file such as an animation, a video clip, a discrete piece of text or URL, or it

could be a collection of contextualised files that make up a learning sequence. It is a

digital resource that can be identified, tracked, referenced, used and reused for a variety

of learning purposes (Wiely, 2002).

3.4.1.5 Content Management Systems (CMSs)

A content management system (CMS) offers a way to manage large amounts of

web-based information that escapes the burden of coding all of the information into each

page in HTML by hand. Content management systems are important to libraries because

the sheer mass of their public web presence has reached the point where maintenance is a

problem. Many libraries also want to customize their look and feel to emphasize

consistency and branding. That can be very difficult when it requires multiple authors to

agree on fonts, formats, logos, and other limitations on their creativity and individuality.

A CMS assists conformity by providing a centrally managed system for displaying the

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content, which still remains under the control of library staff with appropriate subject

expertise (Seadle, 2006).

3.4.1.6 Referencing Software

Referencing Software (sometimes referred to as Bibliographic Management

Software) is designed to help researchers store the references which they have located,

and then cite those references in the essay, paper, thesis or book which they are writing.

Examples are Endnote, RefWorks, and Zotero. (The University of Queensland, 2011)

3.4.1.7 Digital Libraries

A digital library (DL) is a collection of services and “information objects” that are

available digitally. “Information objects” can be defined as anything in a digital format

such as books, journal articles and sounds, since DLs organise and present information

objects to users, and support them in dealing with these objects (Leiner, 2005).

3.4.1.8 Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

Optical Character Recognition, or OCR, is a technology that is used to convert

different types of documents, such as scanned paper documents, PDF files or images

captured by a digital camera into editable and searchable data (ABBYY, 2011).

3.4.1.9 Digital Asset Management System (DAMS)

Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) is an integrated suite of

infrastructure components used to capture, catalog, store, and manage digital assets, and

to expose those assets to creative tools for producing video, audio, Web, and print

content. While, DAMS is related to the market segments of document management, Web

content management, and integrated library systems, it is viewed as an infrastructure

component that supports these other environments. A DAMS infrastructure can ingest

digital assets, store and index assets for easy searching, retrieve assets for use in many

environments, and manage the rights associated with those assets (McCord, 2005).

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3.4.1.10 Metadata Systems

Metadata are data about data. The term came into being with the appearance of

electronic resources and it initially referred to standards that assisted in identifying,

describing and locating electronic resources. This concept continued to evolve as it was

applied to a variety of “non-traditional” formats, resulting in proliferation of metadata

schemes. Metadata standards existing today range from very complex to very simple.

Relative simplicity or complexity of metadata standards depends in large part on the

resources for which they were created and the depth of description that is deemed

necessary to make these resources accessible. (El-Sherbini and Klim, 2004)

3.4.1.11 Meta Search Systems

Meta searching, also known as integrated searching, simultaneous searching,

cross-database searching, parallel searching, and broadcast searching, refers to a process

in which a user submit a query simultaneously to numerous information resources. The

resources can be heterogeneous in many respects; their location, the format of the

information that they offer, the technologies on which they draw, the types of materials

that they contain, and more. The user’s query is broadcast to each resource, and results

are returned to the users (Sadeh, 2005). Metalib and Webfeat are examples of meta search

systems.

3.4.1.11.1 MetaLib

MetaLib is a federated search system developed by Ex Libris Ltd. MetaLib

conducts simultaneous searches in multiple, and often heterogeneous, information

resources such as library catalogs, journal articles, newspapers and selected quality

Internet resources. (Ex Libris Metalib, 2011)

3.4.1.11.2 WebFeat

WebFeat launched the original federated search engine in 1998 to let libraries

search any or all of their databases at the same time. Over 16,000 libraries currently use

WebFeat - from small schools to the largest public and academic libraries in the world.

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WebFeat's patented federated search technology makes it compatible with virtually any

databases, WebFeat supports over 9,000 databases. (WebFeat, 2011)

3.4.1.12 Virtual Reference Services

Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) defines virtual reference

service as: “reference service initiated electronically, often in real-time, where patrons

employ computers or other internet technology to communicate with reference staff,

without being physically present. Communication channels used frequently in virtual

reference include chat, video conferencing, voice over IP, co-browsing, e-mail, and

instant messaging (RUSA, 2004).

3.4.1.13 Electronic Reserve Systems

Some educational institutions are now providing electronic reserve systems that

allow storage of electronic versions of materials that students may retrieve on a computer

screen, and from which they may print a copy for their personal study. When materials

are included as a matter of fair use, electronic reserve systems should constitute an ad hoc

or supplemental source of information for students, beyond a textbook or other materials.

(Copyright Crash Course, 2001).

3.4.1.14 Open-URL Link Resolver

Open-URL stands for Open Universal Resource Locator. Open-URL link resolver

technology is designed to remove obstacles from users searching electronic resources. It

enables the searcher to go directly from an individual citation to the full text referred to

by that citation in one mouse click. For example, if a student finds a citation in the

Modern Language Association Bibliography, he/she can click on the open-URL icon and

be connected to his/her destination, the full text article (Yi and Herlihy, 2007).

3.4.1.15 Remote Patron Authentication (RPA)

Today, libraries have been charged with the responsibility of controlling Internet-

based access to restricted resources. Patrons are coming to expect access to library

resources whether they are inside the library or at some remote location.

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Remote Patron Authentication delivers real-time patron authentication against

specific library systems, requests redirection to restricted resources, and requests

authentication identification to online content and database providers. Referring URL,

SharedID/Password, Proxy Server, EZproxy are examples of remote access method.

3.4.1.16 Programming Languages

A programming language is a set of rules that provides a way of instructing the

computer to perform certain operations (Leon and Leon, 1999, p. 12.1).

Programming languages are said to be lower or higher, depending on whether they are

closer to the language the computer itself uses (lower which means 0s and 1s) or to the

language that people use (higher, which means more English like). Perl, Java, C and C++

are examples of programming languages.

3.4.1.16.1 Perl

Perl is a popular scripting language that runs on a wide variety of platforms,

including UNIX and Windows. Perl is open source, easily integrated into Web servers for

Common Gateway Interface (CGI) , easy to learn, and supports a large library of utilities.

(Your dictionary, 2011). Now Perl is used for a wide range of tasks including system

administration, web development, network programming, bioinformatics, and

development. (Your dictionary, 2011)

3.4.1.16.2 JAVA

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun

Microsystems in 1995. It is the underlying technology that powers state-of-the-art

programs including utilities, games, and business applications. Java runs on more than

850 million personal computers worldwide, and on billions of devices worldwide,

including mobile and TV devices. There are lots of applications and websites that won't

work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure,

and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers,

cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere. (Java, 2011)

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3.4.1.16.3 C++

An object-oriented version of C created by Bjarne Stroustrup at AT&T Bell

Laboratories in 1986. In C, "C++" means "add 1 to C." C++ is the basis of the Java

language. As one of the most popular programming languages ever created, C++ is

widely used in the software industry. Some of its application domains include systems

software, application software, device drivers, embedded software, high-performance

server and client applications, and entertainment software such as video games. (Tech

dictionary, 2011)

3.4.2 Federated Search Engines

Conventional search engines like Google provide access to Web information that

can be acquired easily by crawling hyperlinks. However, a large amount of information

cannot be copied arbitrarily by conventional search engines. This type of hidden

information, which is very valuable, can only be accessed via an alternative search model

other than the centralized retrieval model used by conventional search engines. Federated

search provides access to the hidden information by providing a single interface that

connects to multiple source-specific search engines (Si, 2007). Google Scholar, and

Scirus, are federated search engines among others.

3.4.2.1 Google Scholar

Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/) is a search engine that provides a

simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, one can search

across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions,

from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and

other web sites. Google Scholar helps to find relevant work across the world of scholarly

research.

Google Scholar aims to rank documents the way researchers do, weighing the full

text of each document, where it was published, who it was written by, as well as how

often and how recently it has been cited in other scholarly literature. (Google Scholar,

2011)

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3.4.2.2 Scirus

Scirus (http://www.scirus.com/) is the most comprehensive science-specific

search engine on the Internet. Driven by the latest search engine technology, Scirus

searches over 410 million science-specific Web pages, enabling researchers to quickly:

� Pinpoint scientific, scholarly, technical and medical data on the Web.

� Find the latest reports, peer-reviewed articles, patents, pre prints and journals

that other search engines miss.

� Offer unique functionalities designed for scientists and researchers.

Scirus has proved so successful at locating science-specific results on the Web

that the Search Engine Watch Awards voted Scirus 'Best Specialty Search Engine' in

2001 and 2002 and 'Best Directory or Search Engine Website' WebAward from Web

Marketing Association in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. (Scirus, 2011)

3.4.2.3 Meta Search Engines

Unlike search engines, Meta Crawlers do not crawl the web themselves to build

listings. Instead, they allow searches to be sent to several search engines all at once. The

results are then blended together onto one page. Below are some of the major Meta

Crawlers. (Sherman, 2005)

3.4.2.4 Dogpile

Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com) is a popular Meta search site owned by

InfoSpace that sends a search to a customizable list of search engines, directories, and

specialty search sites. Then displays results from each search engine individually.

(Sherman, 2005)

3.4.2.5 Vivisimo

After entering a search term, Vivisimo (http://www.Vivisimo.com) will not only

pull back matching responses from major search engines but also automatically organize

the pages into categories. It is slick and easy to use. (Sherman, 2005)

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3.4.2.6 Kartoo

Kartoo (http://www.kartoo.com) is a Meta search site that shows the results with

sites being interconnected by keywords. (Sherman, 2005)

3.4.2.7 Mamma

Founded in 1996, Mamma (http://www.mamma.com) is one of the oldest Meta

search engines on the web. Mamma searches against a variety of major crawlers,

directories and specialty search sites. (Sherman, 2005)

3.4.3 RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification)

RFID stands for Radio Frequency IDentification, and in essence consists of a

miniature transmitter or receiver incorporated into a device known as a tag in a movable

item, which can be located by a receiver or transmitter which may be stationary or also

movable depending on the application. RFID technology is primarily intended to reveal a

current change in the library user service from the semi-automated to the fully-automated

mode (Chan and Ying, 2005). It is a fast growing technology used in libraries for

enhanced circulation capabilities, better inventory control, reliability, minimising theft of

documents, and provides batch access and storage of mass data.

3.4.4 Web-Based Knowledge Management

Knowledge management (KM) is viewed as a “process about acquisition,

creation, packaging, application and reuse of knowledge” Knowledge management is an

increasingly important source of competitive advantage for organizations. Hundreds of

millions of users can now access several billion documents on the web, and even larger

data sets reside in organizations, intranets and web-accessible databases (the so-called

deep web). Today web based knowledge management is playing a very important role in

big libraries. It has become more vital along-with the development of knowledge

economy (Rah, Gul, and Wani, 2010).

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3.4.4.1 Web 2.0 Tools

The term “Web 2.0” was coined by O’Reilly Media at a conference in 2004 and it

has become the mechanism to refer to the next generation web. Web 2.0 is a knowledge-

oriented environment where human interactions generate content that is published and

used through network applications in a service-oriented architecture. Wikis, RSS, SNS,

Blogs and Mashups are all seen as components of Web 2.0. This variety of

communication tools available on Web 2.0 enables the introduction of a new KM model,

also called KM 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0 (Kakizawa, 2007; McAfee, 2006; Shimazu and

Koike, 2007 cited in Razmerita, Kirchner, and Sudzina, 2009, p. 1022). This model

tries to better harness the use of collective intelligence, and thus accelerates the

distribution of information.

3.4.4.1.2 Wikis

Wiki is a collaborative website whose content can be edited by anyone who has

access to it. It is a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet

forum, but also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website. Wikis

are a knowledge management tool. This new tool allows for content to be worked on

collaboratively and produced at the same time. Put another way, it’s a tool for knowledge

creation (collaboration) and a tool for sharing explicit knowledge (content management)

rolled up into one (Rah, Gul, and Wani, 2010).

3.4.4.1.3 Blogs

Blog as a "first of the social software" which is also described as "chronological

social web site". Blogs have become a very popular, easy and social platform to exchange

information, and gradually are becoming a more acceptable reference sources even in

peer reviewed publications. There are many blogs on the Web offering news and trends

in the specific fields of human knowledge (Zarea Gavgani and Visha Mohan, 2008).

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3.4.4.1.4 Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

RSS gives the possibility of being informed about new items added to the

interested site. Librarians can utilize the RSS feeds to catch up trends and changes of

desired medical specialty, and simultaneously to give the same opportunity to user

community to keep themselves up-to-date. Basically, blogs are not created by group of

people as wikis are created. But it is a collaborative source because readers can comment

and publish their own ideas about the topic, or ask more information (Zarea Gavgani and

Visha Mohan, 2008).

3.4.4.1.5 SNS (Social Networking Services)

SNS user-generated content sites that provide for some means, by which users

can connect and communicate with one another. Sites that offer a means of connection

can be either business-related (e.g., LinkedIn) or social in nature (e.g., MySpace, Orkut,

Facebook). Other networks combine both purposes (e.g., Ryze). Members can join user-

generated content sites through either self-registration or an existing offline connection; a

valid e-mail address is required in both cases (Murchu, Brestlin, and Decker 2004 cited in

Gangadharbatla, 2010).

3.4.4.1.6 Mashups

Originally the term used in Pop music by artists and disk jockeys when two songs

were remixed and played at the same time, Web experts have borrowed the term when

two or more software tools are merged. The resulting new tool provides an enriched Web

experience for end users. Like other social software, mashups are freely accessible. Prior

to the social software movement, only programming experts with training in C++ or

Visual Basic could publish complex Web sites. In contrast, a simple mushup can be

created for free in less than 15 minutes; expert technical techniques are not required

(Cho, 2007).

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3.4.4.2 Web 3.0

Berners-Lee et al. (2001 in Sure and Studer, 2005, p.190) describe Web 3.0 or

semantic web as: “an extension of the current web in which information is given well-

defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation”. The key

enabler of the Semantic Web is the need of many communities to put machine-

understandable data on the web which can be shared and processed by automated tools as

well as by people. Machines should not just be able to display data, but rather be able to

use it for automation, integration and reuse across various applications.

3.4.4.2.1 Ontology

In philosophy, ontology is the study of the kinds of things that exist.” In Artificial

Intelligence (AI), the term ontology has largely come to mean one of the two related

things. First of all, ontology is a representation vocabulary, often specialized to some

domain or subject matter. In its second sense, the term ontology is sometimes used to

refer to a body of knowledge describing some domain, typically a commonsense

knowledge domain, using a representation vocabulary. Without ontologies, or the

conceptualizations that underlie knowledge, there cannot be a vocabulary for representing

knowledge. Thus, the first step in devising an effective knowledge representation system,

and vocabulary, is to perform an effective ontological analysis of the field, or domain

(Chandrasekaran, Josephson, and Benjamins, 1999).

3.4.4.2.2 Taxonomy

The term taxonomy is used with different meanings in different contexts. In the

domain of knowledge organization, taxonomy refers to listing of topics or categories

often used to provide a structured navigational path in a content collection. National

Information Standards Organization (National Information Standards Organisation, 2005)

defined taxonomy as a collection of controlled vocabulary terms arranged in a

hierarchical order.

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3.4.5 Intelligent Agents

In computer science, intelligent agents often refer to software systems that are

able to take actions towards their goals without human intervention. An intelligent agent

may have the ability of reasoning, planning, learning and collaborating with users or

other agents in various environments. The intelligent agent technology has been adopted

in many areas, including industrial control, medical diagnosis, stock trading, personal

assistance, games, scientific discovery and information retrieval, etc. (Liu, 2011)

3.5 Skills in Technological Solutions for Permanent Access to Electronic

Information

Permanent Access and Archiving are of paramount importance. As with

traditional print materials, it is critical to libraries and the constituents they serve that

permanent archival access to electronic information be available, especially where that

information exists only in electronic form (International Coalition of Library Consortia

[ICOLC], 2004).

3.5.1 Digital Archiving and Preservation

Digital preservation is the set of processes and activities that ensure continued

access to information and all kinds of records, scientific and cultural heritage existing in

digital formats. This includes the preservation of materials resulting from digital

reformatting, but particularly information that is born-digital and has no analog

counterpart. In the language of digital imaging and electronic resources, preservation is

no longer just the product of a program but an ongoing process. In this regard the way

digital information is stored is important in ensuring its longevity. The long-term storage

of digital information is assisted by the inclusion of preservation metadata (Leiner,,

2005).

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3.6 Skills in Applications of Emerging Areas of Biomedicine, Computational Biology

and Health Information, Including Electronic Health Care Systems and Records

Free Dictionary (2011) defines biomedicine as the branch of medical science that

deals with the ability of humans to tolerate environmental stresses and variations, as in

space travel and as the application of the principles of the natural sciences, especially

biology and physiology, to clinical medicine. Computational biology or sometimes called

bioinformatics is the field of biology concerned with the development of techniques for

the collection and manipulation of biological data, and the use of such data to make

biological discoveries or predictions. (Medical Glossary, 2011).

3.6.1 Computational Biology (Bioinformatics) Databases

Obviously before analysing any of DNA and protein sequences, they must first be

located and retrieved. Sequences are stored in vast databases world-wide. These

databases are usually either nucleotide (DNA) databases or protein databases.

By far the biggest nucleotide databases are the GenBank in Bethesta USA, the

EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) in Heidelberg Germany and the DNA

Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) in Mishima. Each of the three collects a portion of the total

reported sequence data and changes it with the other on a daily basis. Protein databases

available include the SWISS-PROT database, maintained collaboratively by the EMBL

Data Library and Amos Bairoch of the University of Geneva and the Protein

Identification Resource (PIR) in Washington, D.C. (Vaughan and Pembroke, 2011).

3.6.2 Electronic Health Records

Electronic health records are also known as electronic medical records, electronic

patient records, and computerized patient records. These are computerized systems for

keeping all health information in one place. The personal information is recorded in

digital format and can be shared between multiple health care providers and across health

care settings (Weinberger, 2011).

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3.6.3 Medical Informatics Standards

The need for standards in medical informatics is motivated by the same reasons

that standards are needed in other areas. Standards are needed in collection, manipulation

and transmission of information in medical informatics systems (Berg, 2005).

3.6.3.1 Unified Medical Language System (UMLS)

The purpose of NLM's Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is to facilitate

the development of computer systems that behave as if they "understand" the meaning of

the language of biomedicine and health. To that end, NLM produces and distributes the

UMLS Knowledge Sources (databases) and associated software tools (programs) for use

by system developers in building or enhancing electronic information systems that create,

process, retrieve, integrate, and/or aggregate biomedical and health data and information,

as well as in informatics research. By design, the UMLS Knowledge Sources are multi-

purpose. They are not optimized for particular applications, but can be applied in systems

that perform a range of functions involving one or more types of information, e.g., patient

records, scientific literature, guidelines, public health data (National Library of Medicine,

2006).

3.6.3.2 RxNorm

RxNorm, a standardized nomenclature for clinical drugs and drug delivery

devices, is produced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). In this context, a

clinical drug is a pharmaceutical product given to (or taken by) a patient with a

therapeutic or diagnostic intent. In RxNorm, the name of a clinical drug combines its

ingredients, strengths, and/or form. Because every drug information system that is

commercially available today follows somewhat different naming conventions, a

standardized nomenclature is needed for the smooth exchange of information, not only

between organizations, but even within the same organization.

The goal of RxNorm is to allow various systems using different drug

nomenclatures to share data efficiently at the appropriate level of abstraction ( National

Library of Medicine, 2011).

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3.6.3.3 SNOMED CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine--Clinical Terms)

SNOMED (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine--Clinical Terms) is a

comprehensive clinical terminology, originally created by the College of American

Pathologists (CAP) and, as of April 2007, owned, maintained, and distributed by

the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO), a

not-for-profit association in Denmark. The CAP continues to support SNOMED CT

operations under contract to the IHTSDO and provides SNOMED-related products and

services as a licensee of the terminology (National Library of Medicine, 2006).

3.6.3.4 DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine)

DICOM is a global Information-Technology standard that is used in virtually all

hospitals worldwide. Its current structure, which was developed in 1993, is designed to

ensure the interoperability of systems used to Produce, Store, Display, Process, Send,

Retrieve, Query or Print medical images and derived structured documents as well as to

manage related images (DICOM, 2005).

3.6.3.5 H7 (Health Level 7)

HL7 stands for Health Level 7, and is the highest level of the ISO communication

model. It is a standard for data interchange. The model’s purpose is to archive OSI (Open

Systems Interconnections), a way to get different systems to work together. The OSI

model is not specific to medical informatics. HL7 is specific to the health care domain

(Berg, 2005).

3.6.4 Telemedicine and Hospital Information Systems

Telemedicine is the use of medical information exchanged from one site to

another via electronic communications to improve patients' health status. Closely

associated with telemedicine is the term "telehealth," which is often used to encompass a

broader definition of remote healthcare that does not always involve clinical services.

Videoconferencing, transmission of still images, e-health including patient portals,

remote monitoring of vital signs, continuing medical education and nursing call centers

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are all considered part of telemedicine and telehealth (American Telemedicine

Association, 2011).

3.6.4.1 Mercury

Mercury is a hybrid telemedicine system offering a suite of tools for enabling

sustainable telemedicine program across geographies it provides data insertion and

retrieval, Electronic Medical Record (EMR) building and it allows upload/download of

wide range of file formats such as images, audio/video and documents. This makes it

possible to store/view all kinds of data in EMR (Web telemedicine distributed, 2005) .

3.6.4.2 Sanjeevani

'Sanjeevani' can be classified as a hybrid model of integrated telemedicine

solution that can be used in a store and forward as well as real time mode. Sanjeevani is a

desktop-based application and is designed to facilitate doctor-to-doctor consultation with

the provision of real time patient visualisation using integrated video conference

application for tele-consultation purposes. Its easy-to-use GUI enables the medical

practitioners to explore the application with the basic level of training (Centre for

Development of Advanced Computing, 2010).

3.6.4.3 E-Sushrut

Healthcare is one of the most important aspects of human life. C-DAC's Sushrut,

a Hospital Information System (HIS) has been developed with the objective of

streamlining the treatment flow of a patient in the hospital, while allowing doctors and

other staff to perform to their peak ability, in an optimized and efficient manner (Centre

for Development of Advanced Computing, 2010).

3.6.4.4 Tejas

Web based Telemedicine software integrated with Hospital Information System

software. It comprises of all essential models including core services, support services

and back office (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, 2010).

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3.6.4.5 E-Chavi

As an extension e-Sushrut has another project called e-Chavi, which is an

exclusive image/picture archival system use full for storing the high resolution patient

reports. All these Information Management System products are extremely handy for a

patient who doesn’t need a lot of thought time to access and sort his medical reports (The

blog of Asian hospital & health care management, 2011).

3.7 Communication and Information Infrastructure Including the Internet and Web

In information technology and on the Internet, infrastructure is the

physical hardware used to interconnect computers and users. In some usages,

infrastructure refers to interconnecting hardware and software and not to computers and

other devices that are interconnected. However, to some information technology users,

infrastructure is viewed as everything that supports the flow and processing of

information (Search Data Center, 2011).

3.7.1 Internet

Internet, sometimes called “The Net”, is a very large network of computers. A

more accurate description would be a network of computer networks. Almost all of these

networks use a computer protocol called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet

Protocol). (Addyman, 1994). Several investigators examined the status and use of

Internet in different types of libraries and application of Internet in various library

functions such as reference work; classification and cataloging; interlibrary loan;

document delivery service; and collection development (Abdoulaye and Majid, 2000;

Adeleke and Olorunsola, 2007; Hundie, 2003; Moore, 2000; Raschke, 1993; Saeed et al.,

2000; Seddiqui, 2003; Trhub, 1999).

3.7.1.1 Search Engines

Search engines are Web sites that maintain an index and short summaries of

billions of pages on the Web, Google being the world's largest. Most search engine sites

are free and paid for by advertising banners, while others charge for the service. Yahoo!

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was the first search engine to gain worldwide attention, and it initially indexed most of its

content manually, creating a hierarchical directory that was put together by human

observation. It was known then as a "directory" rather than a "search engine." However,

as Web content grew exponentially, it became impossible to index everything manually.

(Your dictionary, 2011)

3.7.1.2 Electronic Mail (E-Mail)

Application software system originally developed for store-and-forward text

messaging over a packet-based computer network. E-mail originated in the mid-1960s for

communications between time-share computer users (Your dictionary, 2011). Electronic

mail which allows users to communicate in fast speed has become a very popular means

of information exchange all over the world. Its use enables both academics and students

to send and receive academic information, exchange research ideas and generally

facilitate cheap and effective communication (Akinseinde and Adomi, 2004).

3.7.1.3 TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol)

A computer communication protocol is a description of the rules computers must

follow to communicate with each other. TCP/IP is the communication protocol for

communication between computers on the Internet. TCP/IP stands

for Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol. TCP/IP defines how electronic

devices (like computers) should be connected to the Internet, and how data should be

transmitted between them (W3 Schools, 2011).

3.7.2 World Wide Web (WWW)

The World Wide Web (WWW) began as a project at the European Organization

for Nuclear Research (CERN), where Tim Berners-Lee developed a vision of the World

Wide Web.

Tim Berners-Lee - the inventor of the World Wide Web - is now the Director of

the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) (W3 Schools, 2011). A technical definition of

the World Wide Web is: all the resources and users on the Internet that are using the

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Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). A broader definition comes from: "The World

Wide Web is the universe of network-accessible information, an embodiment of human

knowledge." (SearchCRM, 1997)

3.7.2.1 Web Browsers

Quite simply, a browser lets you see information on websites. Currently, browsers

let you see this information in graphical form. The first program that could display

graphical information over the Internet to a user was published in 1993. This first

graphical web browser was called NCSA Mosaic. Prior to its release, the only available

web browser was a text browser named Lynx. In the time since the release of Mosaic,

several other browsers have been created with various features. Internet

Explorer is Microsoft’s browser, Firefox is the Mozilla browser and Apple has released

Safari. (Your dictionary, 2011)

Using Web browsers, libraries have designed and adopted Websites to collect and

preserve information. According to Brower (2004), almost as soon as Mosaic, the world’s

first Web browser, was created in 1993, academic health science libraries (HSLs) began

developing Websites. In 1994 approximately thirteen university medical libraries had

some kind of Web presence in US.

3.7.2.2 Markup Languages

Markup languages are not programming languages, they are sets of markup tags

to describe Web pages.

3.7.2.2.1 HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language)

HTML is a markup language. The purpose of a web browser (like Internet

Explorer or Firefox) is to read HTML documents and display them as web pages. The

browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses the tags to interpret the content of the

page (W3 School, 1999).

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3.7.2.2.2 SGML (Standard Generalised Markup Language)

SGML is an international standard for markup languages. The basis for HTML

and XML (Web Glossary, 2011).

3.7.2.2.3 XML (EXtensible Markup Language)

XML is a markup language much like HTML. It was designed to carry data, not

to display data. XML tags are not predefined. You must define your own tags. XML is

designed to be self-descriptive. XML is a W3C Recommendation (W3 School, 1999)

3.7.2.3 Web Page

A Web page or web document is a text file coded in HTML, which may also

contain JavaScript code or other commands (Your dictionary, 2011). A web page may

incorporate elements from other websites with suitable markup anchors. Web pages are

accessed and transported with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which may

optionally employ encryption (HTTP Secure, HTTPS) to provide security and privacy for

the user of the web page content. The user’s application, often a web browser, renders the

page content according to HTML markup instructions onto a

3.7.2.4 Web Site Administration

Web administrators are system architects responsible for the overall design and

implementation of an Internet Web site or intranet. A person responsible for the

implementation of a Web site. Webmasters must be proficient in HTML as well as one or

more scripting and interface languages such as JavaScript and Perl. They may also have

experience with more than one type of Web server (Your dictionary, 2011). Core

responsibilities of the webmaster may include the regulation and management of access

rights of different users of a website, the appearance and setting up website navigation.

Content placement can be part of a webmaster’s responsibilities, while content creation

may not be.

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3.7.3 Subject Gateways

A simple definition of a subject gateway is "An Internet accessible collection of

descriptions and location details for a range of information, generally available

electronically, organised by subject or discipline, and selected for inclusion based on a

published set of quality criteria." (National Library of Australia, 2007)

3.7.4 LAN/WAN

A LAN (local area network) is a group of computers and network devices

connected together, usually within the same building. By definition, the connections must

be high speed and relatively inexpensive. They function to link computers together and

provide shared access to printers, file servers, and other services. LANs in turn may be

plugged into larger networks, such as larger LANs or wide area networks (WANs),

connecting many computers within an organization to each other and/or to the Internet.

A WAN (wide area network), connects several LANs, and may be limited to an

enterprise (a corporation or an organization) or accessible to the public. The technology is

high speed and relatively expensive. The Internet is an example of a worldwide public

WAN (Indiana University, 2010).

3.7.5 OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog)

OPAC, an acronym for Online Public Access Catalog, is a database composed of

bibliographic records describing the books and other materials owned by a library or

library system, accessible via public terminals or workstations usually concentrated near

the reference desk to make it easy for users to request the assistance of a trained reference

librarian. Most online catalogs are searchable by author, title, subject, and keyword and

allow users to print, download, or export records on an e-mail account (Reitz, 2004).

3.8 Assess, Select and Apply Current and Emerging Information Tools and Create

Information Access and Delivery Solutions

Scientific research is published largely in the form of journal articles, rather than

in books. The Libraries only subscribe to a limited number of journals. A great deal of

information is therefore sought from sources to which the Library does not subscribe

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(Chambers, 1999). Document Delivery Service (DDS) is the provision

of published or unpublished documents in hard copy, microform, or digital format,

usually for a fixed fee upon request. (Reitz, 2004).

3.8.1 Chemical Abstracts Services Document Detective Service (CASDDS)

Mainly aimed at institutions, but indirectly available to the end-user as it is the

supply source behind SciFinder (also produced by CAS). SciFinder is aimed solely at the

end-user and offers document supply on references retrieved through searches. It is

possible to search DDS itself to a limited extent, to see if a journal is covered by the

service, and for what timeframe. Subject coverage is particularly strong for chemistry

journal articles and patent literature (Chambers, 1999).

3.8.2 Blackwell’s Uncover

Service is available to institutions and to individuals. Users are charged per item

ordered. Provides ``contents'' access to 17,000 journals via a searching interface that

allows retrieval by author, keyword or journal title. Subject coverage is widespread but

there is heavy US bias (Chambers, 1999).

3.8.3. BIOSIS Document Express

Claims to cater for any market, but as payment is by deposit account or invoice

only, this is less likely to attract the individual end-user. BIOSIS Document Express is

not searchable. BIOSIS database coverage offers strong biomedical subject coverage and

includes references to abstracts and book literature not generally found in other

biomedical databases (Chambers, 1999).

3.8.4 ISI Document Solution

Service is available to institutions and individuals. Document solution is not

searchable itself, but similar to CAS and BIOSIS, encourages requesting by use of the ISI

accession number retrieved from searching a related ISI database such as Current

Contents or Science Citation Index. It is possible to request without an accession number,

by inputting standard bibliographic details. Although successful outcome of such a

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request is not so assured, subject coverage of ISI databases is very wide which gives a

good chance of success on all requests (Chambers, 1999).

3.8.5 British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC)

BLDSC now welcomes orders directly from individuals, while continuing to

receive business from many thousands of libraries worldwide. Individual, nonregistered

customers may only order photocopies, which are supplied via the ``Lexicon'' service and

include a variable copyright fee per item. Individuals may not request items for loan.

Individuals dealing directly with BLDSC are also obliged to open a billing account for

payment (Chambers, 1999).

3.9 Competency to Apply Expertise in Databases, Indexing, and Information

Analysis and Synthesis to Improve Information Retrieval and Use in the

Organization

In this part database management systems (DBMS) different indexing methods,

database searching techniques and strategies, some medical and allied health databases,

and data mining and data warehousing are defined.

3.9.1 DBMS (Database Management Systems)

As one of the oldest components associated with computers, the database

management system, or DBMS, is a computer software program that is designed as the

means of managing all databases that are currently installed on a system hard drive or

network. Different types of database management systems exist, with some of them

designed for the oversight and proper control of databases that are configured for specific

purposes. (WiseGEEK, 2003)

3.9.2 Databases Search Strategies

Databases are repositories for storing and retrieving information. In order to find

the information you need, you have to know how to construct an effective search

equation within a database’s parameters. The following searching tricks will help to

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construct effective searches within not only different databases but many online search

engines, like Google, as well (Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, 2010).

3.9.2.1 Logical Boolean Combination of Terms

Placing AND between two or more keywords commands the database to retrieve

only results including all of the keywords entered. This narrows the search and increases

the relevancy of the search results. Placing OR between Search terms is the great way to

search for synonyms of words. OR broadens the search, allowing the database to find just

one of the search terms. Placing NOT before a search term excludes that specific term

from the search (Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, 2010).

3.9.2.2 Truncation of Terms

Another way to expand the search is to truncate it. Truncation locates multiple

forms of a word, including different endings. By adding an asterisk (*) to the end of a

root word, search results will include any applicable variation of the search term (Saint

Mary’s University of Minnesota, 2010).

3.9.2.3 Keyword, Uncontrolled Vocabulary Searching

Keywords are words that describe or relate to the research topic. One should

determine what they think are the best keywords. When searching in a database, one can

choose to look through specific fields—title, author, and abstract etc.—to locate articles

that mention the search term (Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, 2010).

3.9.2.4 Controlled Vocabulary Searching

Journal articles and books are assigned terms that describe them—controlled

vocabulary—for database organization and retrieval purposes. Controlled vocabulary can

also be called subjects or descriptors. When you search for a resource using the correct

controlled vocabulary terms, you will retrieve relevant, topic-specific results. No need to

worry about weeding out irrelevant (Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, 2010).

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3.9.2.5 Pre-Coordinated Vocabulary Searching

Pre-coordinated vocabulary searching refers to the combination of individual

concepts into compound or complex subjects at the point of storage. (Cubbins, et al.,

2007)

3.9.2.6 Post-Coordinated Vocabulary Searching

Post-coordinated vocabulary searching refers to the combination of individual

concepts into compound or complex subjects at the point of retrieval (Cubbins, et al.,

2007).

3.9.2.7 Searching Weighted Terms

A search based on frequencies of the search terms in the documents being

searched. It produces a numerical score for each possible document. A document’s score

depends on the frequency of each search term in that document compared with the overall

frequency of that term in the entire corpus of documents. A common approach

is called tf.idf which stands for term frequency inverse document frequency. The term

frequency means “the more often a term occurs in a document, the more important it is in

describing that document. Inverse document frequency means the more documents a term

appears in, the less important the term is (Howe, 2010).

3.9.2.8 Searching Classified Arrays

Classified arrays are a group of coordinate subjects on the same level of a

hierarchical structure, e.g., oranges, lemons, limes, but not citrus fruit (Cubbins, et al.,

2007).

3.9.3 Medical and Allied Health Databases

This section presents an overview of medical and allied health databases

including Pubmed, Medline, Toxicology Literature Online (TOXLINE), AIDSinfo,

International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE: Excerpta

Medica, Cochrane Library, Pars Medline, Iran Medex, and IndMED.

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3.9.3.1 PubMed

PubMed, available via the NCBI Entrez retrieval system, was developed by

the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of

Medicine (NLM), located at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Entrez is the

text-based search and retrieval system used at NCBI for services including PubMed,

Nucleotide and Protein Sequences, Protein Structures, Complete Genomes, Taxonomy,

OMIM, and many others. PubMed provides access to citations from biomedical

literature. LinkOut provides access to full-text articles at journal Web sites and other

related Web resources. PubMed also provides access and links to the other Entrez

molecular biology resources (National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2008).

3.9.3.2 MEDLINE

MEDLINE is the NLM's (National Library of Medicine) premier bibliographic

database that contains over 18 million references to journal articles in the life sciences

with a concentration on biomedicine. A distinctive feature of MEDLINE is that the

records are indexed with NLM's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). The database

contains citations from 1950 to the present, with some older material. New citations that

have been indexed with MeSH terms, publication types, GenBank accession numbers,

and other indexing data are available daily (Tuesday through Saturday) and display with

the tag [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] (National Library of Medicine, 2011).

3.9.3.3 Toxicology Literature Online (TOXLINE)

TOXLINE is produced by the National Library of Medicine. The information in

TOXLINE is taken from a number of secondary sources. It contains bibliographic

citations on the toxicological, pharmacological, biochemical and physiological effects of

drugs and other chemicals. It references journal articles, reports, monographs, meeting

abstracts, papers, letters and theses. (The University of San Francisco, 2011)

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3.9.3.4 AIDSinfo

AIDSinfo is a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) project

that offers the latest federally approved information on HIV/AIDS clinical research,

treatment and prevention, and medical practice guidelines for people living with

HIV/AIDS, their families and friends, health care providers, scientists, and researchers.

(AIDSinfo, 2011).

3.9.3.5 International Pharmaceutical Abstracts

Worldwide, comprehensive bibliographic coverage of pharmaceutical science and

health related literature. Produced in co-operation with the American Society of Health-

System Pharmacists International Pharmaceutical Abstracts includes 30 years of in-depth

indexed reference to the world pharmacy (in the broadest sense) literature; plus, related

health, medical, cosmetic journals, and state pharmacy journals; abstracts of presentations

at major pharmacy meetings are also included. IPA is unique in its coverage-no other

service provides this. The numerous references to alternative and herbal medicine (over

10,000 references from 1970-present) are an example of this unique coverage. (Ovid,

2011)

3.9.3.6 Chemical Abstracts

Chemical Abstracts database includes over 20 million citations to the worldwide

literature of chemistry and its applications from 1967 forward. The database includes

journal articles, patents, reviews, technical reports, monographs, conference and

symposium proceedings, dissertations, books, and journal article preprints. CA SEARCH

corresponds to the bibliographic information and complete indexing found in the print

Chemical Abstracts published by CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service). The controlled

vocabulary CA General Subject Index Headings, related general subject terminology

from the CA Index Guide, and CAS Registry Numbers, each with its modifying phrase

are included. Chemical substances are represented by CAS Registry Numbers, unique

numbers assigned to each specific chemical compound (Dialog, 2009)

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3.9.3.7 EMBASE: Excerpta Medica Database

A major biomedical and pharmaceutical database well known for its international

scope and timely, in-depth indexing. EMBASE from Elsevier B.V. is a comprehensive

pharmacological and biomedical database renowned for extensive indexing of drug

information from 4,550 journals published in 70 countries (1974-present). It is one of the

most current biomedical databases available. Fully-indexed citations and complete author

abstracts appear on average twenty days after receipt of the journal -- most appear earlier.

Each record contains the full bibliographic citation, indexing terms and codes. More than

80% of the records contain abstracts. The database includes EMTREE, a hierarchically

ordered controlled thesaurus, which contains 46,000 preferred terms and more than

200,000 synonyms. Specialty subsets of EMBASE are also available (Ovid, 2011).

3.9.3.8 Cochrane Library

The Cochrane Library – an online collection of databases that brings together in

one place rigorous and up-to-date research on the effectiveness of healthcare treatments

and interventions, as well as methodology and diagnostic tests. There are over 4,500

Cochrane Reviews currently available in The Cochrane Library. As many as 2,000

protocols for Cochrane Reviews are also available, providing an explicit description of

the research methods and objectives for Cochrane Reviews in progress (The Cochrane

Collaboration, 2011).

3.9.3.9 Pars Medline

With the aim of enabling researchers in the field of health and medicine in Iran to

gain access to research papers in this field, ParsMedline was designed in early 2003 and

became functional in September, the same year. The database comprises more than

79,000 bibliographic descriptions from the years 1978 to 2004. Pars Medline's specialty

fields include medicine, nursing, dentistry, microbiology, virology, special health care

system, nutrition, pharmacology, health, laboratory technology, speech therapy,

audiometry, physiotherapy, and more. More than 95% of the indexed articles have

abstracts and about 33% of them include full text. The Persian journals include both

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Persian and English abstracts. About 1,000 records are added to the site every month. The

database is accessed approximately 100 times every day (Beiki and Beiki, 2005).

3.9.3.10 IranMedex

IranMedex database is an Iranian database, which includes abstract and full text

of papers issued in Journals printed by medical universities of Iran (Rokni, 2005).

3.9.3.11 IndMED

The purpose of IndMED is to index selected peer reviewed medical journals

published from India. It supplements international indexing services like PubMed. It

covers about 77 journals indexed from 1985 onwards. IndMED has been produced under

an ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) funded project - "National Databases of

Indian Medical Journals". Another resource produced under this project is a portal of full

text articles (medIND) of selected Indian medical journals indexed in IndMED or

PubMed. (IndMED, 2011)

3.9.14 Abstracting and Indexing

Abstracting and indexing is a category of database that provides

bibliographic citations and abstracts of the literature of a discipline or subject area, as

distinct from a retrieval service that provides information sources in full-text (Reitz,

2004).

3.9.14.1 KWIC (Keyword in Context)

An acronym for Keyword in Context, a type of permuted index in which

the title of a document (and sometimes the text) is used to illustrate the meaning of a key

word used as an entry. Tagged by hand or extracted from the document algorithmically,

keywords are printed in alphabetical order at a fixed position in a line of fixed length

(usually at the center), so that they appear in a column, with as much of the context as can

be accommodated preceding and following each word. The keywords in the column may

be distinguished typographically to make them easier to read. Keyword and context are

usually coded to identify the document indexed. The KWIC index system accepts an

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ordered set of lines, each line is an ordered set of words, and each word is an ordered set

of characters. Any line may be "circularly shifted" by repeatedly removing the first word

and appending it at the end of the line. The KWIC index system outputs a listing of all

circular shifts of all lines in alphabetical order (Reitz, 2004).

3.9.14.2 KWOC (Keyword out of Context)

An acronym for Keyword out of Context, a variation on the KWIC (Keyword in

Context) index, in which keywords extracted algorithmically from the title of

a document(and sometimes the text) are printed as headings along the left-hand margin of

the page, with the titles or portions of text containing each keyword indented under the

corresponding heading. A symbol may be substituted for the keyword in the string of

text. Unlike KWAC indexing, this method does not preserve multiword terms andphrases

in the alphanumeric sequence of headings (Reitz, 2004).

3.9.14.3 Rotated and Permuted Keyword Indexing

A type of subject index in which significant words, usually from the titles of the

works indexed, are used as headings. When a string of keywords is rotated, such an index

is said to be permuted (Parker, 2011)

3.9.14.4 Statistical Approaches in Indexing

Statistical systems use programs that extract words or phrases from the text on the

basis of statistical (frequency of the word or phrase within the text) criteria (Compton,

2010).

3.9.14.5 Computer-Assisted Indexing

Machine-aided indexing (sometimes referred to as computer-aided indexing) is

the use of computer software programs to categorize and index unstructured data.

Machine-aided indexing has been used for many years by libraries, data centers and

government agencies to access documents and information through online catalogs and

fee-based information retrieval services, and now this technology is being used to ease

user access to the exploding information available on the Internet (Compton, 2010).

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3.9.14.6 Controlled Vocabulary Indexing

A controlled vocabulary is a list of terms or other symbols used in indexing.

Terms not belonging to a controlled vocabulary are called free text terms, natural

language terms, and sometimes keywords. The idea of a controlled vocabulary is to

reduce the variability of expressions used to characterize the document being indexed,

e.g. by avoiding synonyms and remove ambiguity (homonyms). Lists of subject

headings and thesauri are typical examples of controlled vocabularies. By principle one is

only allowed to use terms from the controlled vocabulary in the indexing process

(Hjorland, 2007).

3.9.14.7 Pre-Coordinated Indexing

Pre-coordination is the combining of elements into one heading in anticipation of

a search on that compound heading (Wiggins, 2007).

3.9.14.8 Post Coordinated Indexing

Post-coordination is the combining of headings or keywords by a searcher at the

time he/she looks for materials in a catalog (Wiggins, 2007).

3.9.14.9 Use of Weighted Terms

An index term’s weight is based on a function associated with the frequency of

occurrence of the term in the item. Values for the index terms are normalized between

zero and one. The higher the weight, the more the term represents a concept discussed in

the item (Allen, n.d.).

3.9.15 Information Analysis

Information analysis is the ability to discover and quantify patterns in data of any

kind, including numbers, symbols, text, sound and image. The relevant techniques

include statistical and data mining or machine learning methods such as rule induction,

artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms and automated precise systems. (Skills

Framework for the Information Age-SFIA, n.d.)

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3.9.15.1 Data Warehousing

The term data warehousing comes more from the commercial sector than

academic sources. It comes from the need for organizations to control the proliferation of

digital information ensuring that it is known and recoverable. Its goal is to provide to the

decision makers the critical information to answer future direction questions. Data

warehouses are similar to information storage and retrieval systems in that they both have

a need for search and retrieval of information. But a data warehouse is more focused on

structured data and decision support technologies. In addition to the normal search

process, a complete system provides a flexible set of analytical tools to mine the data.

(Kowalski, p. 21, 1997).

3.9.15.2 Data Mining

Data mining (originally called Knowledge Discovery in Databases-KDD) is a

search process that automatically analyzes data and extract relationships and

dependencies that were not part of the database design. Most of the research focus is on

the statistics, pattern recognition and artificial intelligence algorithms to detect the hidden

relationships of data. (Kowalski, p. 21, 1997).