Systems Analysis Assignment

I have just updated my assignment links to include the systems purchasing assignment which I completed along with my colleague, Bonnie Gormley. This assignment covers an evaluation of automated library software packages and a recommendation of a system to be installed on either a real or an imaginary library. We decided to create an imaginary art museum library for this assignment, and we chose the EOS Web library package for our library. The reasons why we chose EOS Web over the other two systems include its capacity to catalog and display images--this is a feature we especially desired since our library was associated with an art museum. The company, EOS International, struck us as sincerely interested in the service of their customers and clients, as evidenced by their prompt responses to our inquiries about the system requirements and costs of their products.

IT Training Module

IT Training Module

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Systems Analysis

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Usability Test

The usability test I have designed is for the University of Alabama website, http://www.lib.ua.edu. It can be found at the following Scribd link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/28184240/Usability-Test

Public Users in the Academic Library

For my term paper in LS 531, I have decided to pursue the topic of the extent to which the general public is served and/or welcomed in the academic library, and the arguments both for and against allowing public, or unaffiliated users access to resources within college and university libraries. A surprisingly substantial number of academic libraries have policies allowing public patrons to borrow books and some also permit them to access databases and online resources. The debate began several decades ago in the middle of the twentieth century when some universities decided that it was in their best interest to open the doors of their libraries to the public. It was the opinion of some librarians that the academic library, whose primary responsibility was the students of its university, also had an obligation to assist other patrons as well.

A survey of college and university libraries conducted in 2001 indicated that a majority of libraries allow access into the library building. However, not as many libraries allowed those users to borrow books. (1) There is a different story with access to online resources. In the same survey, it was determined that about 70 percent of the libraries had canceled their print subscriptions to journals, newspapers, etc. and that they were only available online. (2) It is assumed that authentication is required to access the online journals. The survey also addressed whether the missions of the academic libraries included serving unaffiliated patrons. The majority of the libraries stated that was part of their mission, for various reasons, but about 5 percent stated that it was not part of the mission.(3)

Nova Southeastern University has taken a unique approach to this debate by joining forces with a local public library to create a joint-use facility, that is, one which is open to students, faculty and the general public. Nova Southeastern University is a private university with approximately 19,000 students located in Broward County, Florida. Donald Riggs, the librarian at NSU, first proposed a joint-use library to county officials in 1997. There was a positive response to his idea and eventually a facility was opened to the public in December of 2001. According to Lubans, there are myriad benefits to having a joint-use library. The building is very high-tech, with state of the art computer equipment and wireless connectivity; the library benefits both county residents and NSU students by having materials geared to both groups; the community service mission of the university is fulfilled. "Overall, there's a great pride in the library among the community--students, staff, and the general public. NSU's president, Ray Ferro, Jr. says the library is the soul of the university."(4) The experience of NSU's library project demonstrates how this type of collaboration can positively affect the community around a university.

1. Courtney, Nancy. "Unaffiliated Users' Access to Academic Libraries: A Survey" The Journal of Academic Librarianship 29, no. 1 (January 2003), 4

(2) Ibid., 6

(3) Ibid.

(4) Lubans, John Jr. "A Portrait of Collaborative Leadership: Donald E. Riggs and Nova Southeastern University's Joint-Use Library" Library Administration & Management 16 no. 4 (Fall 2002) 177

Accessibility & Project Management Software

In addition to usability, the issue of accessibility is also an essential part of the development of websites. Accessibility is defined as a property of a website which allows users who have certain disabilities to access the site. This could include providing data for voice-output software which reads information on the website to blind users and making sure the fonts on your site are legible and large enough for older people to read. According to Dan Comden and Sheryl Burgstahler, Website accessibility for disabled individuals is more important than you might think: "The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 requires that U.S. programs and services be accessible to individuals with disabilities. A 1996 Department of Justice ruling (http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/foia/cltr204.txt) makes it clear that ADA accessibility requirements apply to Internet resources." (Comden & Burgstahler, University of Washington)

http://www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Technology/universal.design.html

Project management software is used for major organizations to help them organize large-scale projects. Usually these programs will allow their users to create timelines and schedules for projects and communicate with the personnel involved. Several different software packages are available. One of the most popular of these is Microsoft Project. Here is a screenshot of MS Project showing a Gantt chart, which is a graphical representation of a timeline that has been created for a Wikipedia article: http://tinyurl.com/ybu983v

While Microsoft Project is a proprietary software package (one which cannot be modified in any way by the end user), there are several open source options available; these allow great flexibility in the way in which they can be used. One increasingly popular attribute of project management software is that it be web based. This is because web-based sofware allows the project data to be stored on a server where it can be accessed and modified by multiple users, thus providing for greater collaboration and communication among personnel. This type of software can be of great help to a large academic library or a consortium of libraries to help them achieve long-term goals.