Impact of Globalization on Staffing Pattern for
Digital Libraries in Comparison with the traditional
pattern
Ajit Sagaji Sonawane
Dr. Prabhash Rath
M.E.S College of Engineering
Wadia College campus,
Pune-411001, India
librarian.ajit@mescoepune.org
Gokhale institute of politics and economics
BMCC Rd, Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune, Maharashtra, 411004, India
prabhashrath@yahoo.com
Abstract—In the modern era of digital libraries the
information is huge and requires the librarian to extract and
maintain the information over large units of storage devices. This
information stored over large storage units requires good
software skills to extract the information and disseminate the
information to the required users. So there is a need for change
in the staffing pattern today as librarians not only need to know
the traditional methods of information storage but also need to
adopt the latest technological trends that are coming up for
information storage and use the tools and techniques to extract
the information and disseminate it to the intended users. Various
programming skills are required by the librarians to extract and
maintain the required information on the digital storage. In this
paper the main focus is on the changing scenario of libraries and
the information stored and extracted by the librarians and how
to change the traditional staffing patter to cater to the everincreasing need of users for the library.
Keywords—Traditioanl Staffing pattern;
Computing; Digital information Storage;
I.
ICT;
Cloud
INTRODUCTION
The evolution and proliferation of electronic resources and
digital information in libraries has a number of significant
impacts on the usage of the print resources and traditional
libraries (1). This proliferation of electronic information has
changed the way students and research scholars use print
resources and traditional libraries. As the electronic resources
have increased it is necessary for the librarian to maintain the
information and disseminate the information to the intended
users. There are lots of software’s available for information
management in the library for example some of the open
sources software are listed below (2)

Library Find:
This software is a web based metasearch
webserver application. This server uses the Linux
web Server

Calibre :
This Software is used to manage and maintain ebooks and access the e-books information. This
software runs on various operating systems.

Koha
This software is an open source integrated library
management system. Which provides connection
with the OPAC interface.
To use and maintain these software’s we need technically
trained library staff. The library staff should have knowledge of
maintaining various networking devices and the software
system the library staff should have adequate knowledge of
Open Source Software’s and tools how to install and configure
the tools and how to use these tools to extract the information
stored in the resource pools. The traditional staffing pattern,
which focuses on the traditional methods of information
management and storage, needs some modification so that it
can cater to the new generations libraries. The traditional
staffing pattern is designed according to the traditional methods
of information storage and extraction. In this modern era we
need to modify the staffing pattern as the modern method’s of
information storage and extraction has changed and staff that is
recruited need’s to have the best of the software knowledge to
support the intended users of the library. There is a changing
role of the future academic library professional in the next
generation E-Learning environment.
II.
TRADTIOANL STAFFING PATTERN
The traditional staffing pattern designed by Dr. S.R.
Ranganathan has recommended the following staff formula
which is followed by all the academic public research libraries
across India (10).
a) Professional staff
SB+SC+SL+SM+SP+SR+ST
b) Non-professional skilled staff
B /30,000+S
c) Unskilled Staff
SB /D/4+SC /2+SL+SM / 4+SP / 2+SR / 8+A / 20,000
+D / 500+B /60,000+ (S / 100) /4+V / 30,000
In the traditional staffing pattern all these formulas focus on
the hardbound books in this the e-books are not considered.
The era when the formula was developed there were no ebooks so this formula best suits for the traditional library. What
I would like to propose in this era of globalization we should
have a staffing pattern, which caters to the need of todays users
and information storage.
III.
SBE /DE/4+SCE /2+SLE+SME / 4+SPE / 2+SRE /
8+AE / 20,000+DE/ 500+B /60,000+ (SE / 100) /4+VE /
30,000
In the above formula a),b),c), The main change is E which
stands for Electronic, E-books, E-publications, E-resources,
Videos, CD, DVD, Digital Library. This following as
compared to the traditional formula as follows.
B = Annual budget allotment in rupees.
S = Number of seats for Ereaders
A = Number of Evolumes accessioned in a year
D = Number of Eperiodicals abstracted and indexed in a year
V = Number of Evolumes in the library
MODERN STAFFING PATTERN
In this era of globalization the E-books are growing
tremendously we need to keep track of not only traditional
books but also the E-books and to maintain and keep track of
the information of these books we need skilled staff in the
library who can handle the E-Resources and the E-books. The
information technologies are changing day-today and growing
at a tremendous speed, the knowledge society is becoming
more complex, competitive and dependent on technological
changes and information explosion. The need of e-information
service to the users are also growing and becoming very
essential. The impact of web based e-learning and teaching
environment has influenced every facet of library and
information service in academic libraries and providing new
opportunities and challenges to the library professional for
involvement in the knowledge based society including
electronic and multimedia publishing, internet basedinformation service, global networking, web based digital
resources (3). What skills do librarians need in today’s worlds
with its Google-esque movement toward ubiquitous instant
instant information ? Anecdotal evidence suggests librarians
are acquiring a wider range of information technology (IT)
skills employers deem essential by conducting a content
analysis of randomly selected jobs ads from ALA’s online job
List over a five-month period (4). The borderless library is a
technologically empowered web-based library, which provides
services to its Users throughout computer networks. As the
changes occurred in library environment, the library and
information science professionals should be acquaintance with
different skills (5). The library staffing patter should change or
adopt the technological changes which are taking place in
todays global environment of technology. I would like to
propose the new staffing pattern of digital libraries in
comparison to the traditional staffing pattern.
The electronics data associated with the libraries today is
growing we have more E-books, E-journals and E-Resources in
the libraries across the world today.
The electronic data today is more as compared to the
traditional data today we need to maintain this electronic data.
In Our library we have maintained all the E-data onto the
Private cloud server which is only dedicated to the library and
is accessible over the LAN network to all the users of the
organization who would like to access the E-Information.
The Modern staffing pattern which I would like to propose
is as follows:
Figure-1. Cloud Library Infrastructure in our Campus
a) Professional staff
SBE+SCE+SLE+SME+SPE+SRE+STE
b) Non-professional skilled staff
B /30,000+SE
c) Unskilled Staff
The above figure-1 shows the cloud library infrastructure of
our organization. It contains the following Unit as shown in the
figure-2 below.
This requirement is their for nonprofessional skilled staff
which will look after the library infrastructure and main the
library infrastructure.
c) Unskilled Staff
SBE /DE/4+SCE /2+SLE+SME / 4+SPE / 2+SRE /
8+AE / 20,000+DE/ 500+B /60,000+ (SE / 100) /4+VE /
30,000
Unskilled Staff for Digital Library= 10
Approximately above number of Unskilled staff is required
in the digital library so that the library infrastructure can be
maintained properly.
V.
Figure-2. Overall View of Cloud Library Infrastructure in our Organization
This library infrastructure requires a professionally trained staff
in the domain of information technology today digital
information is growing at a tremendous speed the librarian and
the supporting staff needs to keep-pase with the every changing
requirement of the library information storage and access.
IV.
DOMAIN AREA OF WORK
The domain area of the project is the web-based application
the multi-tier architecture is the main consideration of .Net
2010 that allows creating the system. The Software allows
managing and maintaining the project Status and reports that
are very useful for better productivity and also less time
consuming.
a) Microsoft .NET Framework Common Language Runtime
IMPORTANT RESULTS OF WORK DONE
In the research carried out we have designed a questionercollected data from various colleges across India and finally
we have received replies from South India, North India and
other regions of India.
Result of an Engineering College which we had surveyed
1. Modern Education Society’s College of Engineering has
given us their data and filled the online form
Finally we have drawn the conclusion using the new staffing
patter proposed. All the calculation done is based on the EResources and Digital library Usage.
a) Professional staff
SBE+SCE+SLE+SME+SPE+SRE+STE
= 1+1+1+1+0+0+0;
Professional Staff Required for Digital Library = 4
The Current Scenario of this College is they have to
depend on the System Administrator of the College to get their
technical queries solved.
The above formula proposes that they should at least have
4 technically qualified staff that can manage the digital library,
which is running in this college.
Figure 3. Common Language Runtime
The (CLR) Fig [3] is responsible for run-time services such
as language integration, security enforcement, and memory,
process, and thread Management. In addition, the CLR Fig [3]
has a role at development time when features such as life-cycle
management, strong type naming, cross-language exception
handling, and dynamic binding reduce the amount of code that
a developer must write to turn business logic into a reusable
component. The recruitment policies in the ICT era of digital
libraries requires skilled man power which can be calculated
using the following formula. LIS Curriculums = Skills
Required in Digital era = Job Advertisements = Recruitment
Policy (6).
b) Non-professional skilled staff
B /30,000+SE
VI.
= 1500000/30,000+30
Non Professional Skilled Staff
Library= 80
for Digital
IMPLEMENATION OF THE STAFFING PATTER
We have deployed the entire infrastructure required in the
digital library now the main focus is on the implementation of
the newly designed staffing pattern for the digital library. We
need to hire skilled manpower for the utilization and
maintenance of the digital library infrastructure and to provide
access to the intended users seamlessly without any obstacle to
the intended user of the library we have calculated the number
of E-resources in our organizations which are related to the
library e.g E-books, E-journals, E-Magazine, E-News papers
etc. which accounts to approximately 1.25 Laks of resources
which is around 3-Terabyes of data. We have also calculated
the DOI numbers of each E-resource which was available in
the library resources.
So to manage and maintain this information we have
taken into account the new formula and calculated the staff
required and the skills required by the library staff. From this
study we figured out that the software skills required by the
library staff should be as follows The library is shifting its
focus from concentrating on supply towards centering on what
is asked for by its customers. In correspondence with this
trend, information reference is becoming more and more
significant. The library acquires a gateway function, referring
to information, irrespective of the location where it has been
physically stored (8).
The library staff should have basic knowledge of programming
languages such as ASP.NET, C#. NET, JSP, PHP, APACHE
SERVER, TOMCAT SERVER. The basic programming and
configuration information of these software’s should be known
by the newly appointed staff for the library to manage and
maintain the digital library infrastructure.
We have also designed a software which is a web service
which helps the staff access the various resources in the
library. The web services are as follows. job skills, both
technical and behavioral, currently deemed desirable by
prospective employers. The results also illustrate the
usefulness of using content analysis and co- word analysis
methods for establishing a baseline for ex- ploring the field of
librarianship The Technical cluster most closely resembles
some skills associated with Systems Librarians (9).
Fig 4. Web Service Created for Project Management
Fig 5. Login Screen for reporting tool of library software.
The above screen shots are of the web services designed and
developed for maintenance and information extraction from the
digital library infrastructure. Various web services are designed
to perform most of the operations which are also available in
the traditional library. Some of the operations which are same
in modern and traditional library are implemented as web
service in this software program this software can be accessed
over LAN, WIFI, MAN, WAN network.
This software helps the developers to design their own user
interface for the library and use these services which will help
them speedup the process of information exchange over the
global infrastructures. The library information can be accessed
by the intended user from any where with out any obstacle. Its
simple need only login information and then we can manage
the library information.
VII.
CONCLUSION
Last but not the least we would like to conclude by saying
that in the era of globalization there is a need to change the
staffing pattern to cater to the needs of the digital library.
Nonstop design and development sounds too good to be true.
So how do you keep multiple teams-distributed around the
campus or around the globe working in concert and focused on
the end goal? We need to have good and trained man power
which can help the library grow and maintain the existing
infrastructure of the digital library. The staff should have
adequate knowledge of programming skills of IT and should be
able to tackle problem, which are there in the library
management software. He should have good and sound
knowledge of software like FTP client where he can push and
pull information from the server and update/upload the
contents to the web servers. He should maintain all his
resources efficiently and effectively and provide all the
resources to the intended user he should give high availability
of information 24x7 with out any delay in the extraction of the
information. Hence in todays global environment of
information and technology a librarian and the library staff
have a challenging role to play for information dissemination
to intended users. So we need to change the staffing patter to
support the global changing scenario of libraries.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
A research is something that cannot be materialized without
the co-operation of many people involved in making it a
reality. I wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to all those
who have helped me in making this research work a success. I
wish to express our deep sense of gratitude to my Guide, Prof.
M.B. Konnour, and our director Prof. L.G. Navale MES
College of Engineering for his able guidance and useful
suggestions
REFERENCES
Ziming Liu, “Print vs. electronic reqources: A study of user perceptions,
perferences, and use”, Elsevier, Information Processing and
Management, , vol. 42. pp. 583-592, Feburary 2005.
[2] Sherry Lochhaas, “Open Source Software Libraries”, SLIS Journal B
Sides, Vol.17. pp. 1-14, March 2010.
[3] G. Thamaraiselvi, “Vision and the changing Roles of the Future
Academic Library Professional in the E-Learning Environment:
Challenges and Issues”, ICAL 2009 Conference, International
Conference on Acacemic Libraries, Vol. 1, pp. 139-145, October 2009.
[4] Janie M.mathews, “The presence of IT Skill Set in Librarian Position
Announcements”, University of south alabama JMM’s Vol. 2. pp. 250257, May 2009.
[5] Nirmal ranjan mazumdar, “Skill for library and information
professionals working in borderless library ”, 5th Convention Planner2007,gauhati, Vol 1. pp. 421- 429, December 2007.
[6] Vinod kumar mishra, “Comparative Study of Essential
Qualifications/Experience for Library Staff, Skills Required in ICT
Environment and Syllabus of LIS Education in Digital Era : A Case
Study”, ICAL 2009 ICAL 2009 Conference, International Conference
on Acacemic Libraries, Vol1. pp. 250-255. October 2009.
[7] Liz Burke, “The Austrian Library Journal: The future role of librarians
in the virtual library environment”, Asturia Library journal vol1. pp.
23.29, September 2001
[8] Bas Savenije “The Future of the library : The crucial importance of
accessibility”, IRIS e la Collaborazione bibliothecaris al servizio degli
studi Umanistici, Florence, Vol1. pp- 1-4, May 2000
[9] Linda Marion, “Digital librarian, Cybrarian, or Librarian with
Specialized Skills: Who will Staff Digital Libraries ?”, ACRL Tenth
National Conference, Vol1. pp. 142-149, March 2001.
[10] R. L. Mittal, “Library Administration Theory and Practice”, Jagdamba
Offset Printers, reprint 1996, ISBN : 81-200-0373-X (HB), ISBN : 81200-0374-8 (PB).
[11] Shams Khan,Manoj Tiwari, Ajay Tiwari and Nidhi Srivastava,
“Changing Role of the Future Library Professional in the E-Learning
Environment”, 2009.
[1]
.