Library Automation and Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

Library automation has a rich history of more than 130 years of development, from the standardization of card catalogs to the creation of the machine-readable cataloging (MARC) communications format and bibliographic utilities. Beginning in the early 1980s university libraries and library automation vendors pioneered the first integrated library systems (ILS). The digital era, characterized by the proliferation of content in electronic format, brought with it the development of services for casual users as well as scholarly researchers – services such as OpenURL linking and metasearching and library staff tools such as electronic resource management systems. Libraries have now developed approaches to search that integrate data from the many disparate content sources they have historically managed, as well as the new systems being developed for digital object management. Additionally, the proliferation of services that emerged in the first decade of this century is being consolidated into emergent library service platforms that provide flexible frameworks for managing the full range of library collections. These developments have allowed libraries to evolve their mission of knowledge sharing from aggregating knowledge created globally to a local community to one in which they also aggregate and disseminate locally created knowledge to the world.