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This paper reports the results from a survey of the costs and types of the library automation systems in use in public libraries in Finland. The study was carried out during 2000. The results show that almost all of the Finnish public libraries have some kind of library automation system and that 80 per cent of them are already offering services via the Internet. The costs of establishing public library automation have been approximately 16.8 million Euros with annual operating costs of about 5.7 million Euros, i.e. about 1.2 Euros for every Finnish citizen. The labour costs used in building and maintaining library automation systems had been poorly monitored in the libraries. Thus it is proposed that a model for a better cost‐effective analysis of library automation should be established for the Finnish public libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the corona situation on the academic library services, policies and activities.

The methodology of the paper is opinion piece based on experiences.

There is a need for global policymaking for both the open academic resources dissemination and crisis management.

The originality of the paper is based on recent experiences.

The recent changes in the knowledge economy and scientific knowledge dissemination have put academic libraries in a new situation. The demand for open access of scientific publications and the increasing amount of documents published need a new paradigm in the collection policies and collection building strategies of the academic libraries. At the same time the resources allocated to the academic institutions have been decreasing which has caused the need to reallocate the resources in the collection building and management as effectively as possible. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how the use of data compiled from different sources, such as statistics and assessing user experience, as a tool for analysing the effectiveness of the library’s economic resources and how this has effected on the use of the libraries.

Statistical and trend analysis based on Finnish academic library collections database.

The Finnish academic libraries have made a rapid transition to the digital dissemination of documents. At the same time the national services have enabled the long-time preservation of less used printed materials and have enabled the libraries to save premise costs.

Modeling the findings to other countries maybe difficult because of the specific characteristics of the Finnish academic environment.

Gives examples on managing the shift from a printed to a digital library.

Evidence based tools for collection cost management.

Although resource sharing between scholars is evolving rapidly, This paper uses paper-based interlibrary lending (ILL) procedures in the service repertoire of academic libraries. However, the current business model of acquiring toll-access journals and e-books does not seem to fit very well with traditional ILL practices. In addition, the new models of peer-to-peer resource sharing between academics seem to be much more effective than ILL. Scholars arrange access to the needed publications by using legal (buying, exchanging) and illegal means (Sci-Hub, etc.). Furthermore, the demands for open access have increased, voiced not only by librarians and science funders but also by politicians. This development might change the scholarly publication ecosystem, even though older publications are still likely to remain closed.

This paper contrasts the ILL and usage statistics of Finnish university libraries with the use of ResearchGate, a popular academic social network, which we treat as an example of a peer-to-peer sharing service.

Based on the data, there seems to be a change of paradigm in the resource sharing: the traditional ILL seems to be decreasing and becoming more like a niche service and the digital use and use of social media peer-to-peer resource sharing applications seem to increase rapidly.

The paper examines current resource sharing trends. The analysis is based on the data of Finnish resource sharing, interlibrary lending and ResearchGate usage.

From the 1980s – in some parts of Europe from the 1990s – onward, the new public management (NPM) has been emerging in public organizations including libraries. Since then, there has been a need to develop strategies, to plan budgets and to implement cost and activity accounting as well as benchmarking to compare the library’s processes, costs and activities with those of other libraries. One basic idea of the NPM was to make a transition from focusing on how institutions function to product orientation, to improve the quality of library services, to develop output orientation and to act market and consumer oriented. There also was a need to change from bureaucratic and hierarchically acting organizations to a more modern flexible and lean form of management. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The aim of this paper is in the first part to describe the basic ideas of NPM, their realization in libraries and how libraries have to handle constantly reduced budgets and the risk of being closed down (especially in the “age of austerity”); the second part will show how the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) Library has managed to improve its services with the NPM approach.

Many libraries are faced with serious financial cutbacks on the one hand and with emergent needs to (re)invest in neglected public infrastructure on the other hand. At the same time, they have to develop modern digital library services. Thus there is a need for efficiency, which is put in action via major budget cutbacks. Also many libraries have been closed down since the implementation of NPM ideas.

In this paper, the NPM tools used in the restructuring of the UEF are described and the outcome of this modern management is shown.

By definition, interlibrary lending is a process involving two libraries. The digital revolution changed the method by which the scientific documents were disseminated during the past couple of decades. Nowadays, researchers can exploit several software applications that enable them to upload, save and deliver their documents from one peer to another without the need for a middle man. This paper reviews this change via a study conducted in two Finnish academic universities. The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which researchers have adopted these new possibilities for document dissemination and how this change will affect the role of the libraries in document delivery in the future.

This paper is based on a survey conducted with the academic professors in two Finnish universities. The results were analyzed descriptively.

Academics mainly used digital resources when acquiring documents; library interlending (ILL) was the least widely used means. The majority of the academics usually transmitted their own documents to other persons by e-mail.

This paper is based on data from two Finnish universities.

Libraries should be better aware of current peer-to-peer document delivery practices and evaluate how this will impact on their interlibrary loan services.

Libraries should be more active in document delivery implemented through the various internet applications for academic document dissemination.

Peer-to-peer document exchange is an inadequately investigated topic, especially from a library perspective.

Library Director Jarmo Saarti introduced a wide or ideal model for fiction in literature in his dissertation, published in 1999. It introduces those aspects that should be included in an information system for fiction. Such aspects include literary prose and its intertextual references to other works, the writer, readers' and critics' receptions of the work as well as a researcher's view. It is also important to note how libraries approach a literary work by means of inventory, classification and content description. The most ambiguous of the aspects relates to that context in cultural history, which the work reflects and is a part of. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Since the model consists of several components which are not found in present library information systems and cannot be implemented by them, a new way had to be found to produce, save, process and present fiction‐related metadata. The Semantic Computing Research Group of Aalto University has developed several Semantic Web services for use in the field of culture, so cooperation with it and the use of Semantic Web tools were a natural starting point for the construction of the new service. Kirjasampo will be based on the Semantic Web RDF data model. The model enables a flexible linking of metadata derived from different sources, and it can be used to build a Semantic Web that can be approached contextually from different angles.

The “semantically enriched” ideal model for fiction has hence been realised, at least to some extent: Kirjasampo supports literature‐related metadata that is more varied than earlier and aims to account for different contexts within literature and connections with regard to other cultural phenomena. It also includes contemporary reviews of works and, as such, readers' receptions as well. Modern readers can share their views on works, once the user interface of the server is completed. It will include several features from the Kirjasto 2.0‐application, which enables the evaluation, description and recommendations of works. The service should be online by the end of Spring 2011.

The project involves novel collaboration between a public library and a computer science research unit, and utilises a novel approach to the description of fiction.

The system encourages user participation in the description of fiction and is of practical benefit to librarians in understanding both how fiction is organised and how users interpret the same.

Upon completion, the service will be the first Finnish information system for libraries built with the tools of the Semantic Web which offers a completely new user environment and application for data produced by libraries. It also strives to create a new model for saving and producing data, available to both library professionals and readers. The aim is to save, accumulate and distribute literary knowledge, experiences and silent information.

The paper discusses the consistency of fiction indexing of library professionals and patrons based on an empirical test. Indexing was carried out with a Finnish fictional thesaurus and all of the test persons indexed the same five novels. The consistency of indexing was determined to be low; several reasons are postulated. Also an algorithm for typified indexing of fiction is given as well as some suggestions for the development of fiction information retrieval systems and content representation.

This paper aims to describe the efforts of a library in developing a systematic approach to its human resource management. The success of these activities has been measured annually and there already is some evidence for an improvement in skills as well as of better motivation towards the work on the library.

The paper takes the form of a case study approach.

Creating a learning organization to emphasize the library's functioning as an expert organization requires allocation of significant resources to the staff training but this investment is repaid in better work motivation.

The paper is based on Finnish experiences.

The paper gives examples of the activities promoting job motivation in a university library organization and improvements in the work environment.

The paper provides tools and experiences for the human resources management function in an academic library.

At the turn of this century, it was decided to renovate higher education in Finland and, as a result, three new universities were created by merging existing units. One of these new universities is the University of Eastern Finland, which was formed from the Universities of Joensuu and Kuopio. The merger started in 2007 and in 2008 and 2009 there was a reorganisation of the two previous libraries' management and service provision to create a single new library. The quality management system that the library has been building was used in this process. This paper aims to describe how the strategy was defined; how the organization developed as well as the working order and how a quality manual for the new merged library was created.

The paper is a case study.

The library could utilize its quality management system in merging the two libraries and their service production. It is important for the whole staff to participate in the process.

The paper is based on Finnish experiences.

Models for managing a merger process are presented in the paper. The benefits of a participant management style as well as retaining the best practices from the old libraries into the new unit are emphasised.

The paper discusses the merger of two libraries and the change management processes involved.