Technological Environment in the 21st Century Libraries: 2013

This post highlights several events that have created changes in the use of technology in libraries. A sample list of major events covered are the beginning of electronic mail, the beginning of Online Computer Library Center and AACR, the first use of Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC), then there is the Web OPAC and shared cataloging, the adoption of the @sign for email addresses, the using of the interlibrary loan system, the phrase “surfing the internet”, the beginning of the digital library federation, the first library technology blog, the founding of LibraryThing a social cataloging and lastly, the launch of WorldCat.
MAJOR LIBRARY TECHNOLOGICAL EVENTS

This technological timeline of events caused a reflection of several History Channel programs to surface within me and I carefully thought of each year of significant to add to this essay. This essay revealed that the first computer was unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania. After working with a computer for three years, library automation training was urgently needed in the library workforce. After learning about automation, cataloging library materials in a system with methods was designed by Sanford Larkey. A concerned for retrieving information had to expand from punched cards to online retrieving. Other major events that are covered in this essay are the beginning of electronic mail, the beginning of Online Computer Library Center and AACR, the first use of Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC), then there is the Web OPAC and shared cataloging, the adoption of the @sign for email addresses, the using of the interlibrary loan system, the phrase “surfing the internet”, the beginning of the digital library federation, the first library technology blog, the founding of LibraryThing a social cataloging and lastly, the launch of WorldCat.

TIMELINE OF EVENTS

1946-First Computer

The first computer called ENIAC was unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania in 1945. The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer) was credited with starting the modern computer age according to the research on www.pbs.org. There is evidence from this article that ENIAC was a product of World War II. In another research, Wilburh (2003) stated that the ENIAC in 1946 was the first electromechanical computer and that it was partly a response to the needs of the military to decipher enemy codes. Also according to Wilburh (2003), by the end of the 1970s about 80% of the information processed was text even though numbers were the focus of computers earlier. With the increase of computer usages, our lives have changed in many profound ways (Cain, 2003).

1949-Library Automation

The first generation of library automation was developed by Dr. Estelle Brodman while she was completing her doctoral degree and teaching at Columbia University according to Peay and Schoening (2008). It was highlighted in this research that libraries have explored the application of computing technologies to library operations and that Dr. Estelle Brodman contributions have had a major impact across health sciences libraries as stated by the authors (Peay & Schoening, 2008). Dr. Brodman led Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) library in a national role in promoting automation in libraries by having several conferences with representatives from nineteen states and Canada. According to the development plan for the Periodical Holdings in the Library of the School of Medicine (PHILSOM) by Dr. Brodman, this was proven to be an important advancement in library automation (Peay & Schoening, 2008). After the plan in put in place, the effects of automation on library staffing can changed the workflow according to Fay and Feher (2012).

1952-Library Cataloging

At a meeting of the Medical Library Association, Sanford Larkey who is a physician and librarian applied computer methods to library cataloging and research to the Welch Medical Library Indexing Project in June 1952. This project was stemmed as the earliest applied computer methods to library cataloging (Larkey, 1953). The article provided information on how “IBM machines were activated by an electrical current set up by contact of brushes through the holes punched in the cards” stated Larkey (1953). Today in cataloging, the resulting data must provide insight into libraries’ use of changed headings and their success in maintaining currency and consistency, and the systems needed to support the current pace of heading changes according to the researcher, Hearn (2009).

1954-Library Information Retrieval

Information retrieval system started with punched cards and microfilm before the widespread of computer technology in libraries. Punched cards were a data-processing card through which holes were punched in columns that related to specific data or facts. Although punched cards were used in the libraries beginning in 1936, it was not until 1954 when the Walthamstow Public Library used the punched-card for charging and discharging books (Black, 2007). During this time the commenced of microfilm service in a large number of libraries in the Washington, D.C. were filling the requests of other libraries for resources among the library collection (Black, 2007). According to Bruce R. Schatz (1997), the Director of the Digital Library Research Program in Urbana, IL, information retrieval has been a challenge for professional librarians (p.327). In this century, online information retrieval is available with Internet Web searchers interacting with information sources distributed across the international network (Schatz, 1997).

1965-Electronic Mail

A manager and system programmer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Tom Van Vleck and one of his colleagues named Noel Morris implemented both electronic mail command and a text messaging facility in 1965. The MIT Computation Center begun in 1961 and by 1965 there were hundreds of registered users from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other New England colleges (Vleck, 2012). Passing messages to each other only works between pairs of users who share a common file directory according to Vleck. Emails will go from computers in the libraries to courtrooms, if records and information is summons by the courts.

1967-OCLC: Online Computer Library Center and AACR

Frederick G. Kilgour, a librarian, an educator, and an entrepreneur, is the founder of the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC) in 1967 along with holding the position of first president and chief executive (p. 561). In OCLC, the online shared cataloging system and the online union catalog called WorldCat were introduced into the field of librarianship. OCLC and WorldCat library network and database changed the way people use libraries. The Ohio College Library Center was set up as a nonprofit corporation and a membership organization. On the computers, online union catalog and shared cataloging system enable libraries to catalog books quickly and efficiently and also to order catalog cards. Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR) was implemented on March 20, 1967 to follow when cataloging library items on the computer (Taylor, 2012).

1969-First OPAC in Use

The first online public access catalog was used at the IBM Advanced System Development Division Library in Los Gates, CA. Early online catalogs provided the same access points as the card catalog. These first online catalogs were intended to bring a generation of library users familiar with card catalogs into the online world according to Antelman, Lynema, and Pace (2006). The OPAC changed the traditional card catalogue system by allowing data to spread within computer and then be retrieved immediately through the online public access catalog system in any format (Husain & Ansari, 2006). Library users have many more means of searching and accessing information in various formats on the OPAC than through the traditional card catalogues. With the OPAC, users can search methods and information displays (Husain & Ansari, 2006).

1971-Web OPAC and Shared Cataloging

Web OPAC is an OPAC that is provided on the web to anybody that can access the internet from anywhere. There are similarities with OPAC and Web OPAC such as searching and browsing with optional phrases that are coordinated by the site. The differences are OPAC usage is limited, and Web OPAC usage is global and with OPAC, the users have to follow the program of the particular software in that library but with Web OPAC html files are hyperlink to the subject areas or disciplines (Husain, 2006). Web-based catalogs have an advantage over the catalogs with local networks by integrating into the global information system of the library as well as into other organizations (Ortiz-Repiso & Moscoso, 1999).

The first library to do online sharing cataloging resources electronically was implemented on August 26, 1971 by Michael Hart’s Project Gutenberg (Estes, 2011). According to Michael S. Hart, the use of an USB flash drive is like having several virtual libraries available on “key chains, necklaces, and bracelets” to list a few (p. 268). Also with the use of Project Gutenberg, e-books emerged around this year (1971). The purchasing of e-books has increased in many libraries electing to make e-book available by their online catalogs (Wu & Mitchell, 2010). This book-length publication in digital form can be read on portable devices such as e-readers and tablets as noted by Glenda Browne and Mary Coe (2013).

1971-ARPANET Adopts @ Sign

Ray Tomlinson invented the first e-mail program to communicate between computers on ARPANET in 1971. ARPANET adopted Ray Tomlinson’s @ sign for e-mail addresses that enables international connection (Johncocks, 2006). The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense and was used to send the first message between computers in 1969 (Cerf, 2009). The inventing of the @ sign was a surprised to Ray Tomlinson and his co-workers because he vocalized not to tell anyone about the program because they were not supposed to be working on it.

1979 Interlibrary Loan System

By using a computer-driven interlibrary loan system, libraries began lending and borrowing resources in 1979. Interlibrary loan system proved to be a profitable tool for libraries, especially for those libraries in consortia resource sharing. By libraries working together in consortia, the needs of the patrons can be met with lower costs and faster turnaround time in receiving the requested items (Breeding, 2013). In resource sharing through interlibrary loan system, technology issues such as automated submission, tracking, application programming interfaces and monitoring of requests and workflow tools are effective in managing the distribution of the library items. This phenomenon (interlibrary loan) grew and developed as a legitimate library service because libraries could no longer afford to purchase everything that their patrons wanted or needed and the introduction of technology into the process increased in delivery of documents and presented better reduced turnaround time (Kilpatrick & Preece, 1998).

1992 Phrase “Surfing the Internet”

The phrase “surfing the internet” was coined by Librarian Jean Armour Polly who is the cofounder of the Publib discussion list was named administrator for systems and technology in 2020 at the Liverpool (N.Y.) Public Library as stated in American Libraries (May 2002). In the spring of 1995 a survey of users of the library’s two-year-old Internet service was posed by the Seattle (Wash.) Public Library Internet Survey Committee (Harvey & Horne, 1995). Many of the Internet users who responded to the committee questionnaires became Central Library patrons. The users were at the computer terminals for hours of time exploring a number of information resources, accessing their emails, surfing on the World Wide Web for popular subjects like art, music, dance, theater, film information, and more (Harvey & Horne, 1995).

1994 Digital Library Federation

Digital Library Federation is a network of libraries and related agencies which is made up of practitioners who want to advance digital resources for research, teaching, and learning according to the DLF website at http://www.diglib.org/ This organization of libraries and related agencies created the Service Framework for Digital Libraries to view and transformed activities within libraries into modular services that support. From this group was proposed Collections Digitization Framework which is a service-oriented approach to digitization in academic libraries (Tharani, 2012). The Digital Library Federation (DFL) would like for academic libraries to move from using digitization as a project but to move to reimagine digitization as part of the library services by following a framework design with the functions such as decide, deploy, digitize, describe, deposit, display, and direct (Tharani, 2012). The Collection Digitization Framework provides a common understanding and vocabulary for digitizing the library collections. In the libraries a vast of information is digital. Even prominent research university libraries and Google are planning on digitize over ten million volumes in the next few years (Heath, 2006).

1995 First Library Technology Blog

The first library technology blog was started by Jenny Levine who is a specialist and guide for the American Library Association’s information technology department. The name of Jenny Levine blog site is “Librarians’ Site du Jour”. Blogs are popular in the field of technology and the latest form of communication of ideas. The engagement of global discussion and the influences of society can be impacted by blogging on the Internet (Natarajan, 2007). Blogs can take on several difference forms such as a diary, a news service, a collection of links to internet resources, a series of book reviews, and others. But most blogs display current material daily, weekly, and monthly with older materials archived on the site for browsing. Blogging and Web 2.0 have been used to enhance the Ohio State University Library Non-Roman Cataloging to produced efficiency and integration of cataloging resources (Chen, 2009).

2005 LibraryThing

Librarything, a social cataloging website, was founded on August 29, 2005 by Tim Spalding which is accessed at http://www.librarything.com/press/ He started cataloging his own library for academic and bibliophile friends. Today, LibraryThing is used by book lovers to organize their personal book collections (Westcott, Chappell and Lebel, 2008). In 2007, LibraryThing offer LibraryThing for Libraries (LTFL). Social tagging does not need to be concise and master metadata standards for tagging like traditional cataloguing (Lu, Park & Hu, 2010). Implementing social tagging in the library systems an understanding of how users tag the collections and what vocabulary are used. The understanding will help libraries make decisions on how to implement tagging.

2006 WorldCat

The launch of WorldCat.org happened in 2006 with sharing the library holdings of more than 10,000 libraries on the web. WorldCat is a worldwide union catalog that seeks to make library collections and services through popular search engines. Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) opened WorldCat program in order to access library collections and services for web users (Nilges, 2006). WorldCat Local was used by University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware to evaluate how the new search and delivery interface on cancellation requests (Gaffney, 2012). This interface is designed reflect local resource sharing policies and make it easy for users to place an interlibrary loan request from within WorldCat Local.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, every significant event in library and information technology is an added brick to the building of library technology to the world. The beginning year in this essay was 1946 but a major event in library technology started in 1901 when the U. S. Library Congress produces printed catalog cards and shared cataloging began. Only a few milestones were included in this essay to present an image to the audience on how far technology in librarianship increase over the period of time.

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