Interoperability among university libraries in Bangladesh: Data exchange feasibility

Abstract

Libraries have been cooperating and collaborating on collection building and resource sharing for many years. The cooperation was based on inter-library loan and preparation and publication of union catalogue. In Bangladesh, the ways of cooperation in building resources and access to information resources was not easy and effective in manual way. Since last decade, due to rapid emergence of ICTs in Library field, ways of library resource building and resource sharing have become more easier and efficient than manual way. In the digital era, the term “Interoperability” has become main focusing issue in the field of library resource sharing or information exchange. But questions have been arisen when libraries started to computerize their bibliographic information using different platforms. When the libraries using different platforms, i.e.- Integrated Library System, Single Alone Software, simple Script Language, etc., try to interoperate among themselves, data exchange feasibility becomes main issue. There are many International Standards in developing Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) followed by different libraries in Bangladesh which create major barriers in building interoperability because of inconsistency among themselves. This study was carried out to identify the data exchange feasibility among the university libraries, to show how the inconsistency among different platforms can be removed and thus how university libraries can join in a uniform platform. In the study those university libraries were selected as sample which are in front position in applying ICTs in their work settings. These selected libraries represents most of the automated university libraries in Bangladesh. A questionnaire was developed based on the present ICTs trends in university libraries. This questionnaire judges the capability of the libraries to be interoperable through Z39.50/SRW protocol. This protocol was in main concern when developing the interoperability model. In the study, 7 libraries were found that can create MARC format records. These libraries can directly host bibliographic records into Z39.50 Server. The rest libraries cannot produce MARC format records, but follow MARC fields in catalogue data entry. To convert the bibliographic records of these university libraries into MARC format, MARCedit tool was used. After converting into MARC format, these records can be hosted in Z39.50 Server. Thus, we can achieve our desirable interoperability among most of the automated university libraries in Bangladesh.