Questionnaire for Librarians

This questionniare is produced for my PhD studies. Will appreciate to know the views from professional Librians from Universities or University level libraries from Western Region.

Study of migration of Library Management Systems (LMS) in Western regional Indian libraries
Part A: INFORMATION ABOUT PRESENT Library Management System (LMS)

1. What is the current status of LMS in your Library?
a) Have installed Library Management System (LMS) [ ]
b) Is undergoing a new LMS installation [ ]
c) Is undergoing transition to a new LMS [ ]
d) Is in process of procurement of new LMS [ ]
e) Does not have any LMS at present [ ]

2. What is the name of your present LMS?
LibSuite [ ] Sanjay [ ] SOUL [ ]
SLIM [ ] Librarian [ ] Granthalaya [ ]
LibSys [ ] In-house Software [ ] Any other, ___________

3. Is your present LMS
a) an in-house LMS [ ] b) a proprietary LMS [ ]
c) an open source LMS [ ] d) Not Sure [ ]

If you are using a proprietary LMS, the proprietary rights are with
a) Library [ ] b) Vendors [ ]
c) Shared / Consortium [ ] d) Not known [ ]

4. Please indicate the origin of your LMS
a) Foreign origin (e.g. Alice for Windows, BASISplus, etc.) [ ]
b) LMS developed over foreign LMS (e.g. DELSIS, SANJAY, etc.) [ ]
c) Indian origin (e.g. LIBSYS, SOUL, TULIPS, etc.) [ ]
d) Not known [ ]

5. For how many years are you using your current LMS?
a) < 1 year [ ] b) 1-2 years [ ]
c) 2-5 years [ ] d) > 5 years [ ]

6. What core services are supported by your LMS?
a) Acquisition [ ] b) Circulation [ ]
c) Cataloguing [ ] d) Serial Control [ ]
e) Training to staff & users [ ] f) Data exchange format [ ]g) Online Public Access [ ] support
Catalog i.e. OPAC

7. What services are available in your LMS for easy and effective retrieval of information?
a) Customized Reporting & management information [ ]
b) Graphical User Interface (GUI) based user interface & colour [ ]
c) Inter-library loan & reservation [ ]
d) Multi-lingual support [ ]
e) Automatic messaging for claim, reservations, reminders, etc [ ]
f) Any other, please specify __________________________________

8. Does your LMS provide any of following features? (Tick all that apply).
a) Easier application for Library users and staff [ ]
b) Availability of application modules and subsystems [ ]
c) Coordination between existing subsystems and application modules [ ]
d) Cost effective in terms of hardware, software update, etc. [ ]
f) Require further programming support [ ]
g) Prompt and proper vendor services in case of problem [ ]
h) Extent of vendor support while upgradation of software [ ]
i) Provide clear set of instructions for library staff for migration schedule [ ]
j) Favourable experience of neighbouring libraries using same LMS [ ]

9. Does your LMS support any of following internationally accepted data standards and protocols?
a) Anglo American Cataloguing Rules-2 (AACR - 2) [ ]
b) Common Communication Format (CCF) [ ]
c) MARC / UNIMARC / MARC 21(MAchine Readable Catalogue) [ ]
d) ISO 2709 [ ]
e) Unicode standards [ ]
f) RFID protocols [ ]
g) Support for the storage of metadata structure and formats [ ] (eg. Doublin Core, XML, etc)
h) Information Retrieval Protocol Z39.50 [ ]

10. In your opinion what additional features you would have liked in your present LMS?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


11. How do you grade performance of your present LMS?
a) 100% [ ] c) 50 – 70% [ ]
b) 70 - 99% [ ] d) Can’t say [ ]

PART B: MIGRATION EXPERIENCE

13. In the past 10 years, how many times did your library go through LMS migration?
One time [ ] More than once [ ]

14. If your library has already undergone a migration process, which LMSs were used before present migration?
LibSuite [ ] Sanjay [ ] SOUL [ ]
SLIM [ ] Librarian [ ] Granthalaya [ ]
LibSys [ ] In-house Software [ ] Any other, ___________

15. Why did your library take a decision to migrate from earlier LMS?
a) cost factor - maintenance [ ] c) administrative reasons [ ]
b) quality improvement [ ] d) economic reasons [ ]
e) New features if any ___________________________________________

16. What factors were considered while migrating to present LMS? (Tick all that apply)
a) Mandated by University administration [ ]
b) Mandated by vendor agreement [ ]
c) High ongoing maintenance cost [ ]
d) Earlier LMS was outdated [ ]
e) Additional updates not available [ ]
f) Need for increasing functionality [ ]
g) Need for another hardware platform [ ]
h) User complaints [ ]
i) Unresolved system problems [ ]
j) Lack of support and service [ ]
k) Lack of confidence in former vendor [ ]
l) Lack of database standards [ ]
m) Earlier Vendor no longer available [ ]
n) Other (please list), _________________________________ [ ]

17. What other features guided you for actual choice of migration?
a) Cost saving [ ]
b) Better system [ ]
c) Vendor recommendations [ ]
d) Library Survey [ ]
e) Market analysis [ ]
f) Financial reasons [ ]
g) Administrative ease [ ]

18. Which selection tool was preferred while selecting present LMS?
a) Request for proposal (RFP) [ ]
b) Vendor survey [ ]
c) Review of literature on ILMS & ILMS vendors [ ]
d) Professional consultants [ ]
e) Library committee decision based on neighboring libraries [ ]
f) Any other _________________________________________

19. What pre-migration preparations were required before actual migration? (Tick all that apply)
a) Library staff training [ ]
b) Data backup of circulation, acquisition, serial control, etc. at different [ ]server
c) Informed users about unavailability of library for certain period during [ ]and after migration
d) call back all the books and settle all overdue cases before switching [ ]over to the new software
e) Call back all the hard bounds and loose journal issues from users [ ]
f) Used manual method or other server for transactions [ ]
g) Any other _________________________________________

20. What procedure was adopted while migrating from old LMS to new LMS?
a) Did a test run with test plan with set of test data for expected [ ] results before actual implementation
b) Did a part wise system installation (pilot run) [ ]
c) Both old and new systems were run simultaneously (Parallel run) [ ] till expected results and then switched working with a new LMS
d) Implemented new LMS from certain cut off time [ ]

PART C: DATA TRANSFER

21. Who were actively involved in LMS migration process? (Tick all that apply)
a) Vendor – software team [ ] d) Customer IT support [ ]
b) Library staff [ ] e) Third party consultants [ ]
c) Outside IT experts [ ]

22. Approximately how much time was spent on data transfer / for data entry?
a) Upto 6 months [ ] c) 1 to 2 years [ ]
b) 6 months – 1 year [ ] d) More than 2 years [ ]

23. Who was responsible for data entry while migrating?
a) Library staff [ ] b) Company staff [ ]
c) Software Agency [ ] d) Contact vendors [ ] Please Name - __________________

24. While doing data conversion, the problem areas were (Tick all that apply)
a) Data compatibility [ ] b) Lack of standards in previous data [ ]
c) Software limitations [ ] d) Any other, ______________________

25. Could you transfer previous data to new LMS entirely during migration? Yes [ ] / No [ ]

26. If not, how did you work with partial data?
___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________


PART D: Based on experience of System Librarians and professional staff

27. For your LMS migration were the vendors involved in? (Tick all that apply)
a) Marketing and delivering present LMS [ ]
b) Data transfer from old LMS to new LMS [ ]
c) Data Entry for previous database [ ]
d) Library Staff Orientation [ ]
e) User Orientation [ ]
f) Tailored modifications in LMS as per library [ ]
g) Post implementation troubleshooting [ ]
h) Free upgradation for specific time period [ ] Please indicate time in years _________________________________

28. Please indicate the role of library staff in overall system migration process (Tick all that apply)
a) Pre-migration preparations [ ]
b) Library Staff Orientation [ ]
c) Data transfer process [ ]
d) Re-data entry [ ]
e) Post migration problems troubleshooting [ ]
f) Member of user group of vendor user group [ ]
g) Any other, pl. specify __________________________________

29. On scale of 1 to 5, indicate capability scores of your present LMS functionality for,
a) Operability [ ] d) Effort needed to perform an operation [ ]
b) Ease of use [ ] e) Response time [ ]
c) Flexibility [ ] f) Reliability [ ]

30. Please indicate features of your LMS experience (Tick as per applicability stage)
a) Currently available / support all data elements [ ]
b) Currently available / covers important elements [ ]
c) In testing / will cover all elements [ ]
d) In testing / will cover important elements [ ]
e) In development / will cover all elements [ ]
f) In development / will cover important elements [ ]
g) Can be extended to support all elements [ ]
h) Currently available but needs customization [ ]
i) In test but will require customization [ ]
j) In development / will cover limited elements [ ]
k) Not available / no plans to support listed features [ ]

31. Please indicate your LMS expectation from present LMS.
a) Exceeds library expectations [ ] b) Excellent [ ]
c) Very good [ ] d) Good [ ]
e) Better than average [ ] f) Average [ ]
g) OK, but could be better [ ] h) Poor [ ]
i) Very poor [ ] j) Crying for attention [ ]
k) Not able to support listed features [ ]

32. On the scale of 1 to 5, how could you grade your overall information transfer experience? { RANK 1-5: EASY-HARD}
a) Easy and smooth transfer of previous data [ ] b) Smooth transfer of previous data but took time [ ]
c) Data transfer process is time consuming & tedious [ ]
d) Complicated process and requires lot of time [ ]

33. Would you suggest any specific steps to ensure smooth migration so as to guide other libraries?
Yes [ ] No [ ]
If yes, please specify _____________________________________________________

34. Researcher intends to create a sharing platform, a blog, to share migration experience with library professionals, vendors and technical experts. Would you like to share?
Yes [ ] No [ ]

Suggestions

Please feel free to add comments about your experience regarding LMS that might not have been covered in this survey.
Please let me know if you would like a summary of my findings. I have created a sharing platform, a blog, at http://ojas-lms.blogspot.com to share migration experience with library professionals, vendors and technical experts.

_________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________


Thanking you for your valued time and support,

(Ojaswini Upasani)

Dear Sir / Madam,

May I request you to kindly provide me with the following details; if possible. I assure you the same will be kept as ‘Strictly Confidential’.


Name

Designation

Educational Qualification


Experience


Name & Address of Institute / University / College






Thanking you for your kind co-operation and support.