Indian and International Library Automation Softwares

1. Indian Library Softwares:
   Autolib
   Easylibsoft
   E-Grantalaya
   Gynodaya
   Libra 2000
   Librarian
   Library Manager
   Libris
   Libsuite
   Libsys
   Nalanda
   NewGenLib
   NexLib
   Rovan LMS
   SLIM (System for Library Information and Management)
   SOUL (Software for University Libraries)
   SWIRL [Software for Information Retrieval] [Cataloguing]

1. International Library Software:-
   
   ADLIB Library for Windows
   Most of the library functions can be carried out using this integrated software. Web interface of catalogue is also possible. Demo is available for download.
   
   Alice library automation software
   Book Librarian for Windows.This software is useful for small school, club or corporate libraries. Catalogue of books and circulation services can be undertaken by using this software.
   
   CDS/ISIS software
   This software is use for creating records maintaining a bibligraphical list of documents. It has no facility of ciculation of documents.

Endeavor Voyager

It is based on ORACLE RDBMS. Most of the library functions including web interface of library catalogue can be undertaken.

EOS Library Systems
Available in two series viz. Q-Series for large libraries and GLASS for medium sized libraries. Both run on Windows Platform.

Keystone Library Automation System 6.1
At present only circulation, cataloguing, patron service, OPAC and scheduling and media booking modules are available.

Innovative Interfaces Millenium
Millennium is Innovative's next-generation automated library system. It is a Web-based, open-platform system that offers the best and most complete functionality of any library automation software. The Java™ interface offers staff and patrons an intuitive, easy-to-use, and platform-independent system.

Micro Librarian Systems
Available in two types viz. Eclipse and Jr. Librarian.

MINISIS
MINISIS is a multi-platform object-oriented relational database management tool. It has been developed, distributed, and supported since 1975 by The International Development Research Centre.

OLIB 7
It is an ORACLE based integrated library management system. Most of the library operations can be carried by using this software.

Sagebrush Library Automation systems
Sagebrush offers three top automation systems viz. Accent, Athena and Winnebago Spectrum for integrating information management, catalog searching, and Internet access for libraries of every type and size.

SIRS Mandarin M3
The modules available with this software are OPAC, Circulation, Reports and Statistics and Cataloging.

SIRSI Integrated Library Management System
Most of the house keeping operations of library can be undertaken. Different versions are available depending upon type of library viz. Public, Special, Academic etc. Web interface is availabe with Z39.50 technology.

STAR/Libraries
STAR/Libraries is a multi-purpose system for automating libraries and information centers.

Surpass Integrated Library Management System
Surpass is an automation solution for primary and secondary school districts as well as for public, college, corporate, and other specialty libraries. Trial version is available for download.

Techlib
TLC Integrated Library Systems

URICA Version 7
It is possible to carry out all the functions of library in a integrated manner. Web interface of library catalogue is also possible.

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10 Ways to Improve Your Interpersonal Skills

Ways to Improve Your Interpersonal Skills

No matter how hard you work or how many brilliant ideas you may have, if you can't connect with the people who work around you, your professional life will suffer. The good news is that there are several concrete things that you can do to improve your social skills and become closer to your colleagues. All of these tools will ultimately help you succeed in today's working world. Hence, don't discount the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace. How you are perceived by your manager and colleagues plays a large role in things as minor as your day-to-day happiness at the office and as major as the future of your career.

Try these 10 helpful tips for improving your interpersonal skills:

1. Smile. Few people want to be around someone who is always down in the dumps. Do your best to be friendly and upbeat with your colleagues. Maintain a positive, cheerful attitude about work and about life. Smile often. The positive energy you radiate will draw others to you.

2. Be appreciative. Find one positive thing about everyone you work with and let them hear it. Be generous with praise and kind words of encouragement. Say thank you when someone helps you. Make colleagues feel welcome when they call or stop by your office. If you let others know that they are appreciated, they'll want to give you their best.

3. Pay attention to others. Observe what's going on in other people's lives. Acknowledge their happy milestones, and express concern and sympathy for difficult situations such as an illness or death. Make eye contact and address people by their first names. Ask others for their opinions.

4. Practice active listening. To actively listen is to demonstrate that you intend to hear and understand another's point of view. It means restating, in your own words, what the other person has said. In this way, you know that you understood their meaning and they know that your responses are more than lip service. Everyone will appreciate knowing that you really do listen to what they have to say.

5. Bring people together. Create an environment that encourages others to work together. Treat everyone equally, and don't play favourites. Avoid talking about others behind their backs. Follow up on other people's suggestions or requests. When you make a statement or announcement, check to see that you have been understood. If folks see you as someone solid and fair, they will grow to trust you.

6. Resolve conflicts. Take a step beyond simply bringing people together, and become someone who resolves conflicts when they arise. Learn how to be an effective mediator. By taking on such a leadership role, you will garner respect and admiration from those around you.

7. Communicate clearly. Pay close attention to both what you say and how you say it. A clear and effective communicator avoids misunderstandings with co employees, colleagues, and associates. Verbal eloquence projects an image of intelligence and maturity, no matter what your age. If you tend to blurt out anything that comes to mind, people won't put much weight on your words or opinions.

8. Humour them. Don't be afraid to be funny or clever. Most people are drawn to a person that can make them laugh. Use your sense of humor as an effective tool to lower barriers and gain people's affection.

9. See it from their side. Empathy means being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes and understand how they feel. Try to view situations and responses from another person's perspective. This can be accomplished through staying in touch with your own emotions; those who are cut off from their own feelings are often unable to empathize with others.

10. Don't complain. There is nothing worse than a chronic complainer or whiner. If you simply have to vent about something, save it for your diary. If you must verbalize your grievances, vent to your personal friends and family, and keep it short. Spare those around you, or else you'll get a bad reputation.

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Microsoft unveils new web search engine called “Bing”

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft on Thursday unveiled a new Web search engine, Bing, designed to intuitively understand what people are seeking on the Internet and challenge online king Google. The US software colossus described Bing as a "Decision Engine" and said it will be deployed worldwide at Bing.com by Wednesday. Bing's launch comes in the wake of Google and Yahoo! announcing refinements to their search services and the launch of a Wolfram Alpha query engine that delivers answers instead of lists of websites. "Today, search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the Web and find information, but they don't do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find," said Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer. "When we set out to build Bing, we grounded ourselves in a deep understanding of how people really want to use the Web." Bing relies predominately on algorithms and key words to provide results for online searches but has infused some semantic technology that deduces intended meanings of phrases, according to Microsoft. "The Bing service is a first step," said Whitney Burk, director of communications for Bing. "We still have plenty of work to do and we are excited to get it out into the wild next week." Bing will replace MSN Live Search, which has languished in a distant third place behind market-leading Google and second-place Yahoo! Bing is vastly better than Microsoft's Live but doesn't outshine Google when it comes to general Internet search, according to analyst Matt Rosoff of private firm Directions On Microsoft. "They want to give you more information without having to click through to a lot of other sites," said Rosoff, who has used Bing during the past month as part of a Microsoft test program. "I like it, but I don't think it will get me to switch from Google entirely. They are not naive to the scope of the challenge. They are going to keep throwing money at it for awhile." The search engine is aimed at online shoppers and will initially focus on helping people make buying decisions, plan trips, research health matters, or find local businesses. For example, people using Bing to shop online will automatically be provided product reviews and those planning trips will get information regarding travel bargains. Bing has a "Best Match" feature that identifies and gives high priority to answers that seem to best fit queries. "Quick Tabs" that appear automatically on search results pages recommend query refinements. As examples, searches on cities could trigger tabs for information regarding weather or tourist attractions while queries on films might prompt tabs for movie sound tracks or actor biographies. Semantic technology is used for online research quests on topics along the lines of "Was Albert Einstein married?" Documents or videos can be previewed without clicking through to links. "The most popular button in search today is the 'Back' button," Burk said. " "You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to find something on the Internet . Bing is really designed to help people narrow in on things faster and make smarter decisions." Bing gives Microsoft "a leg up" on competitors but is more likely to lure users from Yahoo! because "Google is too much of a habit for everyone," Forrester analyst Shar VanBoskirk said in a blog post. "Microsoft's Bing will change the face of search," VanBoskirk wrote. "Bing focuses on delivering answers, not Web pages." In what is a growing online search trend, Bing delves into websites to summarize what they have to offer in easily scanned preview boxes. "We are trying to surface functionality right to the top so people don't have to look for it quite so hard," Burk said. Microsoft cited study results indicating that an estimated 30 percent of online searches are abandoned out of frustration and that searchers often fail to get what they seek on a first try.

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A Good Library And Librarian Are Crucial For Faculty Growth

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Open Source Web Content Management Technologies for Libraries

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Seminar on ICT Measurement and Indicators concluded in New Delhi

The Indian Department of Information Technology (DIT), in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), organized a Seminar on ICT Measurement and Indicators in New Delhi (India) from 12 to 14 May 2009.The Seminar focused on issues related to measurement of ICT access, infrastructure and usage, as well as on the impact of ICT on the society in general, and on business, individuals, governance and education in particular. To take advantage of the rapidly changing information society, governments need to monitor and benchmark progress in order to design and review national policies and strategies. In order to do so, reliable data and indicators on the access and use of ICT, and their impact on development have to be defined and collected. Such data and indicators help governments design and evaluate ICT policies and strategies, compare their ICT developments with those in other countries, and adopt solutions to reduce the digital divide. Different agencies need to work together to identify priority areas, to examine ways of coordinating activities, to maximize available resources and to achieve optimum results. The Seminar was addressed to national ICT policymakers, regulatory agencies, national statistical offices, industry associations and academia. It covered issues related to: indicators for infrastructure and access, households, business, education and e-government; benchmarking the information society; measuring impact; measuring ICT and gender; security and trust in the online environment; statistics on ICT-enabled services; and capacity building for ICT measurement. During the session 'Indicators on ICT in Education' Mr S. Venkataraman, of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), briefly introduced concepts of information literacy indicators, media development indicators and literacy assessment, as well as the Monitoring Programme (LAMP) of UIS, which are very useful for measuring the information society. The participants of the Seminar extensively consulted the following documents and publications in order to better understand concepts and methodologies:
* Revisions and Additions to the Core List of ICT Indicators. Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development, 2009;
* Manual for Measuring ICT Access and Use by Households and Individuals, International Telecommunication Union, 2009;
* Manual for the Production of Statistics on the Information Economy, revised edition, UNCTAD, 2009;
* Measuring ICT: the Global Status of ICT Indicators, Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development, 2005;
* Measuring the Information Society: The ICT Development Index, International Telecommunication Union, 2009;
* Report of the Partnership on Measuring Information and Communication Technologies for Development: Information and Communications Technology Statistics, Economic and Social Council, 2009. The Seminar provided a platform for national experts, policymakers, practitioners and stakeholders to discuss ICT indicators and topics that are important to national policymaking. The following suggestions were made to improve the availability of ICT statistics in India:
* Harmonising and scaling up statistics available at ministries, national statistical offices and other agencies;
* Bridging the data gap between available statistics and those required by the Revised Core List of ICT Indicators;
* Adapting international statistical tools and guidelines related to gathering, analysing and presenting statistical data;
* Building the capacities at the national level in order to maintain the quality and the reliability of data.

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India launches Online Petition for Patent Information

India launches online petition for patent information
T. V. Padma
[NEW DELHI] An Indian online forum dealing with intellectual property rights has launched a petition to Indian patent authorities, calling for more transparency in the country's patent system and for information to be more easily accessible.The online petition was launched this week (28 April). It follows an earlier petition submitted at the end of 2007 following which Indian patent authorities said that the complete database with searchable patent information, including patent specifications and decisions, would be available online by March 2009.But the deadline was not been met, prompting the new petition, Shamnad Basheer — a professor in intellectual property law at the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, who initiated the petition — told SciDev.Net.The second petition calls for more patent-related information to be made public. This includes all correspondence between a patent applicant and the patent office; clear patent titles and abstracts; patent office circulars that impact patentability; corresponding patent applications elsewhere; and amendments made by the applicant from time to time to address issues raised by opponents challenging a patent.A key piece of information being sought by the petition relates to 'working' statements — whether a firm that has been granted a patent for a drug is actually making the drug — which are supposed to be filed by the patentee with the Indian patent office. According to Indian patent laws a firm that has been granted a patent for a drug in India must also make it in India for the next three years. Otherwise the drug is eligible for compulsory licensing.This information is often withheld while filing an application, says Basheer. "Since most of the drug patents in India are by MNCs [multinational corporations] and many of these patents are not 'worked' in India (the patented drug is not manufactured in India, but only imported into India), many of these patents become susceptible to compulsory licenses," he says. The groups are also requesting that the Indian government build public-private partnerships with the ICT sector in India to build a better e-filing system and other innovative ICT tools to aid a more efficient administration of the Indian patent office.Basheer says the petition attracted 100 signatories after the first day, including patent attorneys, pharmaceutical companies, students from the Carnegie Mellon Institute and the Max Planck Institute, and global not-for-profit organisations such as the Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge that promotes technical assistance on IPR issues to governments, campaigns against unsound pharmaceutical patents and promotes access to drugs.

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Fedora Commons and DSpace Foundation Join Together to Create DuraSpace Organization

Fedora Commons and the DSpace Foundation, two of the largest providers of open source software for managing and providing access to digital content, have announced today that they will join their organizations to pursue a common mission. Jointly, they will provide leadership and innovation in open source technologies for global communities who manage, preserve, and provide access to digital content.
The joined organization, named "DuraSpace," will sustain and grow its flagship repository platforms - Fedora and DSpace. DuraSpace will also expand its portfolio by offering new technologies and services that respond to the dynamic environment of the Web and to new requirements from existing and future users. DuraSpace will focus on supporting existing communities and will also engage a larger and more diverse group of stakeholders in support of its not-for-profit mission. The organization will be led by an executive team consisting of Sandy Payette (Chief Executive Officer), Michele Kimpton (Chief Business Officer), and Brad McLean (Chief Technology Officer) and will operate out of offices in Ithaca, NY and Cambridge, MA.
"This is a great development," said Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI). "It will focus resources and talent in a way that should really accelerate progress in areas critical to the research, education, and cultural memory communities. The new emphasis on distributed reliable storage infrastructure services and their integration with repositories is particularly timely."

Together Fedora and DSpace make up the largest market share of open repositories worldwide, serving over 700 institutions. These include organizations committed to the use of open source software solutions for the dissemination and preservation of academic, scientific, and cultural digital content.
"The joining of DSpace and Fedora Commons is a watershed event for libraries, specifically, and higher education, more generally," said James Hilton, CIO of the University of Virginia. "Separately, these two organizations operated with similar missions and a shared commitment to developing and supporting open technologies. By bringing together the technical, financial, and community-based resources of the two organizations, their communities gain a robust organization focused on solving the many challenges involved in storing, curating, and preserving digital data and scholarship," he said.

New Products
DuraSpace will continue to support its existing software platforms, DSpace and Fedora, as well as expand its offerings to support the needs of global information communities. The first new technology to emerge will be a Web-based service named "DuraCloud." DuraCloud is a hosted service that takes advantage of the cost efficiencies of cloud storage and cloud computing, while adding value to help ensure longevity and re-use of digital content. The DuraSpace organization is developing partnerships with commercial cloud providers who offer both storage and computing capabilities.
The DuraCloud service will be run by the DuraSpace organization. Its target audiences are organizations responsible for digital preservation and groups creating shared spaces for access and re-use of digital content. DuraCloud will be accessible directly as a Web service and also via plug-ins to digital repositories including Fedora and DSpace. The software developed to support the DuraCloud service will be made available as open source. An early release of DuraCloud will be available for selected pilot partners in Fall 2009.

Key Benefits of the DuraSpace Organization
DuraSpace will support both DSpace and Fedora by working closely with both communities and when possible, develop synergistic technologies, services, and programs that increase interoperability of the two platforms. DuraSpace will also support other open source software projects including the Mulgara semantic store, a scalable RDF database.
DuraSpace is mission-focused. The organization will be associated with its broader mission of working towards developing services and solutions on behalf of diverse communities rather than focusing on single-solution product development. This change in orientation can be characterized as moving beyond the software and toward the mission.
DuraSpace will bring strength and leadership to a larger community and amplify the value brought by each organization individually. With both organizations working in unison, there can be significant economies of scale, synergies in developing open technologies and services, and a strong position for long-term sustainability.
Learn More about DuraSpace
DuraSpace will be represented at the Fourth Annual International Conference on Open Repositories (http://openrepositories.org/). Please check the schedule and visit the Fedora Commons and DSpace information tables at the conference to learn more. Also, initial information will be available at the DuraSpace website, with more information forthcoming in June 2009.

About Fedora Commons
Fedora Commons (http://fedora-commons.org/) was established in 2007 as a not-for-profit organization and the home of the Fedora repository software and related open source projects. Fedora is a robust, integrated, repository system that enables storage, access and management for virtually any kind of digital content. The Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture (Fedora) was originally designed by Sandy Payette and colleagues at Cornell University and was established as an open source project in 2001 by Cornell and the University of Virginia. Fedora has a large international user community and is installed worldwide at universities, libraries, research institutions, cultural organizations, and corporations.

About DSpace Foundation
The DSpace Foundation (http://dspace.org/) was formed in 2007 to support the growing global community of institutions using DSpace open source software to manage scholarly works in a digital repository. DSpace was jointly developed in 2002 by Hewlett-Packard and the MIT Libraries. Today, there are over more than 500 organizations worldwide using the software to manage, preserve, and share their scholarly output.

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Google Squared

Google Squared
May12, 2009 was the historical moment in Google history, when at searchology event, launched a new searching tool named Google Squared. This is the best effort in web 3.0 and semantic searcrh. It is the effort of structuring the unstructred data on web pages and in process they extract data from the web pages and presents the search results as squares in an online spreadsheet format.The San Francisco Chronicle described the feature in a bit more detail that it compiles details from several Web pages and organizes them into a table on a single page, with multiple columns like a spread sheet. One of the features announced today is called Search Options, which is a collection of tools designed to let users better "slice and dice" their search results so they can manipulate the information they're getting. Mayer said the tools should help people who struggle with what exactly what query they should pose."

Let's say you are looking for forum discussions about a specific product, but are most interested in ones that have taken place more recently," she wrote. "That's not an easy query to formulate, but with Search Options you can search for the product's name, apply the option to filter out anything but forum sites, and then apply an option to only see results from the past week."One Search Options tool is geared toward giving users more information when they do a search. For instance, instead of just getting results in text form, they could have the search engine return images as well.Google acknowledged that this was still very much a “labs” feature that was imperfect at best. However, between Wolfram Alpha, Google’s efforts in semantic search, and a host of competitors that will be popping up in this field, we may very well be on the edge of Search 3.0. This is good news for our students, teachers, and library scientists struggling to help our students get the information they want from the billions of pages of junk (and millions of pages of interest) floating around the web. In that same layer Google also is adding more information to its results snippets -- those little pieces of text that tell you about the site that's been pulled up. If you're searching for a hotel, for example, the snippet won't just tell you the name of the hotel and where it is -- now it could tell you its price range, number of stars in customer reviews and the number of reviews listed. Google Squared still needs a lot of improvement, which is why it's being released to Labs. It collects the information by looking for structures that seem to imply facts. The squares are built out based on high probability of facts. There will be concerns over Google providing this data on its own by grabbing data and serving it up without sending searchers to the sites that provided the info.
For more reading following links may be helpful ------
Screenshots of Google Squared
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-05-12-n39.html
YouTube-Google Squared
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2onuEXThPs

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D Space Proposal Tvm 1407

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