Importance Of Library Management System

By Author: Arun Kumar
Total Articles: 1
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A discovery system provides single window access to all the library resources including Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC), ebooks, journals, articles, theses, and physical collection of books. It is just like a Google search engine where a user can type a search query and get results. These results are fetched through the metadata of the content. A user can also perform a narrow search by using the advanced search feature.

Performing searches in segregated databases is a tedious task. Though Federated searches had made things easier wherein a user could perform combined searches on Z39.50, SRU/W, Libsys databases, and obtain sitewise listings along with extended bibliographic details like citations, folders, etc. However, people worldwide have become used to performing searches through a single-window search engine and this is the reason why the need for a discovery system arises in the area of library automation.

A discovery system can work in isolation but it is important to integrate it with your Library Management system ...
... (LMS). All academic libraries try to provide access to students enabling them to browse their collections and select their items of interest. Therefore, a discovery system connected with an LMS will be able to provide data of a physical collection of books, user accounts along with resources on the internet like ebooks, ejournals, online catalogs etc. all at one go.

The integration of Library Management System and the library discovery system also leads to the promotion of library resources and collection of usage data for analysis by the library managers.

Features of Discovery Systems
Importance of Discovery systems can be emphasized through the following features:

Single search box experience to patrons and library staff similar to that of a Google search engine
Faster search results
Advanced search option for a narrowed down search for users to input queries like author, title, subject, publisher etc. as per their criteria. Searches can be sorted as per content formats like books, journals, articles and thesis.
Indexing through metadata from internal library materials and external materials.
Simple and easy search giving relevant results
Autocomplete feature with suggestions in the form of a drop down list

Future of Discovery Systems
The future holds great opportunities for libraries as discovery systems will continue to evolve. So far discovery systems have been created to index as per text but in future there is a strong possibility of indexing video, audio and other rich media content. There will also be an expansion in the API availability to discovery systems enabling access to a wider pool of external resources to patrons. Deeper searches will result in better insights and higher usage of all kinds of resources by the patrons.

Conclusion
The library discovery system holds high importance considering the needs of the students involved in academic research work. It will be an ideal situation if your LMS provider and discovery service provider are the same because then the risks related to compatibility, flexibility and scalability can be mitigated. Alternatively, if your LMS provider cannot provide discovery services then you can choose a discovery system from a separate vendor and integrate that with your LMS.
All kinds of academic and public libraries would need to embed discovery systems to ensure a high quality user experience.