Defining a library system
Author: Jharina Pascual
Project: National Institute of Speech and Hearing | Library Management
Year: 2015
Trivandrum, India
"The library is a growing organism."
- S. R. Ranganathan, The Five Laws of Library Science
The domain of technical services in libraries has been an umbrella term for the work of collecting, purchasing, and cataloging materials; because these activities are largely invisible to the public, they often take on secondary roles to the more prominent aspects of library service, such as reference interviews or information literacy sessions. Even within the largely-misunderstood work of libraries, this collection of departments and processes that are somewhat misunderstood even among library staff who work outside of these areas. The goal of library technical services, like public services, is ultimately to define processes that lead to greater information access for patrons, whether that is presenting electronic resources with an accessible interface or creating metadata that facilitates discovery in a catalog.
These technical processes can also determine the possibility of a library to develop and expand not only its resources but also its public services. One of my group's tasks in Trivandrum, India is to assist the National Institute of Speech & Hearing in writing policy and formalizing management procedures for their library. Part of the theory behind a collection development policy, for example, is the idea that being able to codify a library's mission, patron base, and formal procedures will assist library managers in making decisions about changes in its collection and services over time, as well as enumerating the resources that are or are not available to make those changes. Without this document, managers react to change and make decisions without a stable reference to their ideals and their core group of customers.
In the context of the expected growth of NISH as a research institution, our task is to assist the library staff in defining not only the existing services and processes, but also to research the information needs of their patrons in order to produce this documentation. We hope to recommend ways that the library can develop its collection and services to better meet those needs. This work will also provide an working example of how the NISH Library can assess its services in the future.
Project: National Institute of Speech and Hearing | Library Management
Year: 2015
Trivandrum, India
"The library is a growing organism."
- S. R. Ranganathan, The Five Laws of Library Science
The domain of technical services in libraries has been an umbrella term for the work of collecting, purchasing, and cataloging materials; because these activities are largely invisible to the public, they often take on secondary roles to the more prominent aspects of library service, such as reference interviews or information literacy sessions. Even within the largely-misunderstood work of libraries, this collection of departments and processes that are somewhat misunderstood even among library staff who work outside of these areas. The goal of library technical services, like public services, is ultimately to define processes that lead to greater information access for patrons, whether that is presenting electronic resources with an accessible interface or creating metadata that facilitates discovery in a catalog.
These technical processes can also determine the possibility of a library to develop and expand not only its resources but also its public services. One of my group's tasks in Trivandrum, India is to assist the National Institute of Speech & Hearing in writing policy and formalizing management procedures for their library. Part of the theory behind a collection development policy, for example, is the idea that being able to codify a library's mission, patron base, and formal procedures will assist library managers in making decisions about changes in its collection and services over time, as well as enumerating the resources that are or are not available to make those changes. Without this document, managers react to change and make decisions without a stable reference to their ideals and their core group of customers.
In the context of the expected growth of NISH as a research institution, our task is to assist the library staff in defining not only the existing services and processes, but also to research the information needs of their patrons in order to produce this documentation. We hope to recommend ways that the library can develop its collection and services to better meet those needs. This work will also provide an working example of how the NISH Library can assess its services in the future.
