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While academic libraries have often purchased proprietary software to assess patron satisfaction, the open source movement has generated high-quality software available free of charge. These tools are useful alternatives in an era marked by tremendous budget cuts familiar to many academic libraries. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the ability of open source software to effectively and affordably measure the quality of service at academic libraries.

The author's experience with using the open source tool LimeSurvey to administer a library survey over a three-year period serves as a case study for other institutions. A literature review contextualizes the history of patron satisfaction surveys within academic libraries and questions the lack of an open source presence. Popular proprietary survey software is reported as a viable but expensive option, leading to a detailed case study of Sarah Lawrence College's successful addition of open source software to its assessment procedures.

LimeSurvey is a flexible, customizable, and cost-effective tool for a small college library investing in querying its patrons for constructive feedback as a means of improving user experience.

This paper will be of value to any library on a fixed budget looking to assess patron satisfaction with resources and services. Very little literature currently exists on this topic, but as the open source movement continues to flourish this software can play an integral role in allowing libraries to cut costs but not indispensable patron feedback.

The overview of FOLIO in this paper will include a description of its background and development, architecture, work structure, benefits and core features. It will detail how FOLIO handles the challenges libraries confront and how it makes library administration more effective and integrated.

This paper conducted a comprehensive literature search using Google Scholar and ProQuest databases to identify relevant literature on FOLIO library management systems, open-source library systems and library services platforms. It screened and selected relevant literature related to FOLIO’s architecture, features, implementation, community involvement and impacts on libraries. The selected literature was organised into a systematic structure, and analysed and synthesised information was selected from studies. Critically reviewing the literature, insights from libraries, users or FOLIO developers were integrated, and data analysis was if accessible. This research paper was organised logically, presenting a coherent flow of information.

A strong alternative for conventional proprietary systems is the use of FOLIO as an open-source library management system. The versatility, usability and affordability of the platform have the potential to revolutionise library services and improve the entire library experience for both staff and users. FOLIO is a revolutionary tool that gives libraries the resources they need to succeed in the digital era as they continue to adjust to the shifting information landscape. The unique open-source platform FOLIO is expected to continue to succeed and improve through the library community’s collaborative efforts and continuous research and development.

Despite FOLIO’s growing popularity, empirical research on user attitudes and perceptions of them is still in its early stages. This paper is one of the first scholarly studies to attempt a thorough forecast of FOLIO adoption in technologically advanced libraries.

The purpose of this study is to examine public library staff attitudes towards an open-source library automation system in the state of Indiana. The researchers were interested in understanding the library staff’s perceptions of the value of the system in performing their job duties and improving library services.

The researchers travelled to nine public libraries every three months to survey library staff from January to December 2010. The participants completed the surveys at the libraries and were given the option to remain anonymous. The survey consisted of six questions regarding the use of the Evergreen system for work processes and basic demographic information of the staff. There were a total of 323 survey respondents. Of the 323 respondents, 57 (17.65 per cent) used the Evergreen system in their daily work routines at the library.

The primary benefits reported were: ability to check the availability of library materials at other Evergreen libraries via the shared catalogue, the Evergreen system provided more functionality than their previous library automation systems and the ability to reserve materials for patrons.

This was a convenience sample. All survey participants provided their responses voluntarily during the 12-month study period. A more comprehensive sampling procedure should be considered in the future.

The study indicated the need for improvements in the Evergreen Indiana system. Those improvements were also relevant to other open-source integrated library systems.

This paper aims to introduce the concept of open-source hardware to the library professionals and gives a brief of the outlook of its current and potential application in libraries

The paper is based on a literature review.

Open source already aids libraries and has great potential but is hobbled by its intrinsically technical appeal.

The paper makes first observation towards the concept of open-source hardware with a slant towards librarianship.

This paper aims to propose a toolset that enables individual digital collections owners to satisfy the requirements of aggregators even in cases where their IT and software infrastructure is limited and does not support them inherently. Managers of repositories/digital collections face the challenge of exposing their data via Open Archives Initiative – Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) to multiple aggregators and conforming to their possibly differing requirements, for example on output metadata schemas and selective harvesting.

The authors developed a software server that is able to wrap existing systems or even metadata records in plain files as OAI-PMH sources. They analysed the functionality of OAI-PMH data providers in a flow of discrete steps and used a software library to modularise the software for these steps so that the whole process can be easily customised to the needs of each pair of OAI-PMH data provider and service provider. The developed server includes a mechanism for the implementation of schema mappings using an XML specification that can be defined by non-IT personnel, for example metadata experts. The server has been applied in various real-life use cases, in particular for providing content to Europeana.

It has been concluded through real-life use cases that it is indeed possible and feasible in practice to expose metadata records of digital collections via OAI-PMH even when the data sources do not support the required protocols and standards. Even advanced OAI-PMH features like selective harvesting can be supported. Mappings between input and output schemas in many practical cases can be implemented entirely or to a large extent as XML specifications by metadata experts instead of software developers.

Exposing data via OAI-PMH to aggregators like Europeana is made feasible/easier for digital collections owners, even when their software infrastructure does not inherently support the required protocols and standards.

The approach is original and applicable in practice to diverse technology environments, effectively addressing the indisputable fact of the heterogeneity of software and systems used to implement digital repositories and collections worldwide.

Wayfinding efficiency is an extremely influential factor to improve users' library interior experience. However, few research has studied the different functions of various wayfinding signages for university library users through mobile visual experiment. To fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between university library signage system design and patrons' wayfinding behavior features.

In this article, an eye movement tracking method was introduced to record eye movement data during the wayfinding process of participants in the library interior, targeting the cognition and psychology of library users in the wayfinding signage system. The visual guiding usability of landmarks, informational signages and directional signages were quantitatively tested, and the fixation on the signage system between orientation strategy users and route strategy users was compared. This study also investigated the effects of library users' spatial anxiety and environmental familiarity on their fixation on the area of interest of the wayfinding signage system using the differential test and regression.

This paper observed that informational signage had the best visual navigating competence. The difference of fixation duration and searching duration between patrons used various wayfinding strategies was significant. The informational signage was most attended by the route strategy users, and the orientation strategy users rarely focused on the directional signage. And participants with high anxiety tended to ignore the visually auxiliary function of the landmarks but paid attention to the directional signage. The participants with low anxiety could capture the landmarks that could not be easily found by the route strategy users. And participants less familiar with the environment were more sensitive to the landmarks. Furthermore, this paper offers optimization measures for university library wayfinding signage system, from the perspectives of informational signage understandability improvement, directional signage physical specification design and wayfinding assistant system with automatic landmark technology.

This article adds to the relatively sparse literature on university library user wayfinding experimental study in China. The experimental findings of this paper also have important practical implications for academic libraries' wayfinding system evaluation. The whole process could be seen as a repeatable and standard framework and methodology to inspect university library's wayfinding signage system usability and user wayfinding behavior performance.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth insight on librarians’ use of the social networking site Facebook as a way to connect and promote interaction with library users. A series of common practices for building and maintaining a Facebook page for information professionals are thoroughly and critically presented.

Two methods were employed for the purposes of this study. Specifically, a systematic review was adopted to identify all the relevant literature concerning librarian’s use of Facebook, and a content analysis of the literature to identify the specific Facebook features used, the way these were employed by librarians, and the reasons these specific features were chosen.

In total, 12 Facebook features used by librarians in the literature were identified through content analysis. The creation of the librarian’s Facebook Profile was the most important featured employed followed by Groups Messages, Wall Posts, Events and Friends.

This study extents a literature review paper (Vassilakaki and Garoufallou, 2014). Therefore, only papers published between 2005 and 2012 and assigned to categories “librarians creating profiles on Facebook”, “Librarians personal experiences on Facebook” and “exploring librarians’ perspectives” were considered with the view to focus on librarians’ views and the way they use Facebook to connect with users.

This study contributes in providing the baseline for creating a series of best practices for librarians use of Facebook for professional purposes. Furthermore, it provides a valuable insight on the specific ways information professionals use Facebook successfully.

This is a case study on the opportunities provided by Open Source library systems and the experience of delivering these systems through a shared service.

This chapter derives from desk research, interviews, and direct involvement in the project. The format is a case study, setting out a detailed timeline of events with information that can be applied in other settings.

This chapter presents reflections on the value and limitations of collaboration amongst libraries and librarians on an innovative approach to library systems and technologies. It also presents reflections on lessons learned from the processes and detailed discussion of the success factors for shared services and the reasons why such initiatives may not result in the outcomes predicted at the start.

Libraries and IT services considering Open Source and shared service approaches to provision will find material in this study useful when planning their projects.

The nature of collaboration and collaborative working is studied and observations made about the way that outcomes cannot always be predicted or controlled. In a genuine collaboration, the outcome is determined by the interactions between the partners and is unique to the specifics of that collaboration.

The case study derives from interviews, written material and direct observation not generally in the public domain, providing a strong insider’s view of the activity.

A surge of library activities and technological advances have increased the demand for data accuracy and agility among library clientele. Therefore, novel approaches are needed to extend library services. This paper aims to introduce the implementation of a prototype mobile library application (app) designed using an in-house open source system, Koha.

This paper presents a case study using a metamorphosis process to create mobile apps. This case study is tested based on the library services with a set of activities during the system acceptance test (SAT) and also user acceptance test (UAT). An application programming interface (API) used to support two-way communication, including system-to-component and system-to-system connectivity. The design, features and advantages of this mobile app are discussed, illustrated and analyzed. The case study reports the mobile app version development from the Koha Open Source Library Information System.

The app was tested using user acceptance test (UAT) and system acceptance test (SAT) by library staffs who found it functional, accessible, appealing and useful. Features such as Online Public Access Catalog search, library collection scanning, patron accounts, patron personal book collection, circulation, librarian chat, QR codes for borrowing books, social media integration and notifications of library activities and events were successfully tested. This process was useful for the creation of a mobile app based on the existing library System-Koha Open Source System.

This study is limited to a case study of a national university in Malaysia.

This study has some practical implications for implementing library mobile applications, e.g. it will encourage librarians to implement library applications in libraries.

This study is useful for mobile developers and libraries that plan to offer mobile library services to their patrons. This paper presents a case study of metamorphosis existing process of library open source System-Koha Open Source System.

The purpose of this study was to develop and update database of books in the International Management Institute Bhubaneswar. The study presents the status of automation in International Management Institute Bhubaneswar. A properly computerized library will help its user with quick services. Library automation refers to mechanization of library housekeeping operations predominantly by computerization. Implement automated system using New Gen Lib (NGL) library integrated open source software to carry out the functions of the circulation section more effectively to provide various search option to know the availability of books in the library and generate the list of books due by the particular member and also overdue charges. NGL is an integrated software system with required models for small to very large libraries. Being an open source any library wanted to go for automation for their library housekeeping operations can make use of this software.

Open source is a software development model and a software distribution model. In this model, the source code of programs is made freely available with the software itself, so that anyone can see, change and distribute it provided they abide by the accompanying license. In this sense, open source is similar to peer review, which is used to strengthen the progress of scholarly communication. The open source software differs from the closed source or proprietary software, which may only be obtained by some form of payment, either by purchase or by leasing. The primary difference between the two is the freedom to modify the software. An open system is a design philosophy antithetical to solutions designed to be proprietary. The idea behind it is that institutions, such as libraries, can build a combination of components and deliver services that include several vendors' offerings. Thus, for instance, a library might use an integrated library system from one of the major vendors in combination with an open source product developed by another library or by itself to better meet its internal or users' requirements.

NGL free software is constantly being updated, changed and customized to meet the library's needs. While all of this is fine and dandy, and sounds like the win-win solution for your library, there are still pitfalls and hurdles we will need to overcome. Hopefully, this article provides some introductory information as to how to wean your library off of traditional computing products and dive into the pool of open source resources available today. Libraries in the developing countries are able to support electronic access, digital libraries and resource sharing because they are able to use Open sources Software (OSS). Even libraries in well-developed countries are becoming more inclined toward OSS to improve their services.

To develop and updated database of books and other online/printed resources of the International Management Institute Bhubaneswar. To implement automated system using NGL library integrated open sources software. To carry out the charging and discharging functions of the circulation section and Provide Various search options to know the availability of books in the library.