PROFICIENT AUTOMATED LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM(PALMS): A NEW MODEL FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF PAKISTAN.

The basic objective of this study is to provide a detailed perspective of current situation of public libraries workings and procedures in Karachi (Pakistan) and propose automation strategy with implementation strategy. The study elaborates on the needs of automated library management system components ideally packaging into an ALMS. Differences between available library management system(s) and proposed ALMS have been highlighted as well. This study recommends the development as well as implementation architectures, development technologies, database platforms, required human resources, and Infrastructure (i.e. servers, client machines etc.) for ALMS as a preferred system for public libraries in Karachi,Pakistan.In this study we have proposed a new model for public libraries that refocuses them on the vital task of knowledge management coherent within their communities by way of forming a hub for sharing and disseminating

The basic objective of this study is to provide a detailed perspective of current situation of public libraries workings and procedures in Karachi (Pakistan) and propose automation strategy with implementation strategy. The study elaborates on the needs of automated library management system components ideally packaging into an ALMS. Differences between available library management system(s) and proposed ALMS have been highlighted as well. This study recommends the development as well as implementation architectures, development technologies, database platforms, required human resources, and Infrastructure (i.e. servers, client machines etc.) for ALMS as a preferred system for public libraries in Karachi,Pakistan.In this study we have proposed a new model for public libraries that refocuses them on the vital task of knowledge management coherent within their communities by way of forming a hub for sharing and disseminating pertinent knowledge. A multi-layered architecture has been proposed for managing information on both local and global levels by creating a connection among multiple instances of system via internet. Statistical data collected by surveying thirty public libraries all over Karachi played a pivotal role in the proposed system design. Different aspects of the system has been identified, quantified and grouped into robust and flexible modules to facilitate the common interactions with the application. The system incorporates modules as pluggable and/or reusable components using MVC design pattern to ease the process of adding, modifying, and/or deleting modules without affecting the integrity of the system. The system features an extremely fast NoSQL database for local storage for real time and offline search (while internet is down). All local databases are combined to form a global database to facilitate the passive users (book readers) of the system. The system also defines four different user-views to provide multi-level access of either the local or global database to its users. Since the horizon of technology is very fragmented, the system is designed to be extremely portable by using Electron framework which enables the application to cover all major platforms Windows, Linux, and Macintosh which are most widely used Operating systems by Institutions.
Our main focus in this research paper are Public libraries" which are now acknowledged to be an indispensable part of community life as promoters of literacy, providers of a wide range of reading for all ages, and centers for community information services." (encyclopedia Britannica www.britannica.com ."They represent an indispensable link in the scientific system, while they also crucially support and ensure the advancement of knowledge thereby elevating the intellectual spirit of a society." (Kinya, 2011). ). Public libraries play an important role in educating the society by acting as a means through which people get access to books outside their home. "They provide support to citizens who are jobless, underprivileged, and those that have health challenges. In addition, they impart knowledge and inculcate reading habits among children and adults alike (Mattern, 2014;Mcharazo, Kauaria & Lahti, 2012;Prabhjeet & Paramjeet, 2015). No other institution, public or private, does a better job of reaching people who have been left behind in today"s economy like the public library." Zickuhr et al. (2013) in a study of the value of public libraries in America observed that residents attest to the fact that public libraries play a significant role in their day to day life. They promote quality of life and deliver many services that would have been difficult to locate elsewhere. "Most Americans confirmed that they have had numerous positive skills by virtue of their use of public libraries located around their communities. They also believe that public libraries have done a good job in adopting recent technologies. Summarily, public libraries influence people in five major areas: education, social policy, information, cultural enrichment and economic development ." (Brophy, 2001) During the past decades, developing countries like India and Bangladesh have shown increasing awareness of the need for developing and upgrading their libraries specially public libraries and resources as quickly as possible based on their importance in the growth of a country; but the situation in Pakistan is quite different.
Problem Statement:-During the past decades, developing countries like India and Bangladesh have shown increasing awareness of the need for developing and upgrading their libraries and resources as quickly as possible based on their importance in the growth of a country; but the situation in Pakistan is quite different. It seems that public libraries in Karachi,Pakistan has not adopt the new technology for their management. The reason may be that no standard available library Management system is develop to meet their needs. The manual management not only restricts our libraries" internal operation and usage, but also does it debilitate the national literacy rate, reading culture, civic sense and community development. In this study we provided a detailed survey where it is mentioned that there is an overall decline in resources available at public libraries

Objective of the Study: -
The primary objective of the study is to establish communication and coordination among all functional public libraries that work under the local government in a metropolitan city like Karachi. This research will primarily gather pertinent information from these libraries, and an attempt will be made to communicate identified problems to the concerned authorities. 5. Public Endpoint.
The Global Data Base is the centralized location which holds all the collection of individual libraries and is also served as main pubic access point. So, what"s new being iterated in this paper ;main question that needs to be answered? This work is only the beginning towards a lot of questions that are now arising with its full horizon. But the new finding and attempts which up to best knowledge are not clearly answered or available in literature are listed below: 508 1. Until now no solution exists for library automation that supports multiple platforms biggest worry of which is Windows Platform which is the most used OS ever. 2. Until now there is no online portal which provides combined view of libraries to perform search queries.
Literature Review:-A review of literature related to this thesis shows that numerous studies have been conducted in Pakistan and abroad to examine the different aspects of public libraries, library automation, automated library management system and integrated library management system. Khurshid (2000)6has based his research on the facility of public library in Pakistan. It was a survey-based research and supported by the Technical Working Group. The survey was designed to visit 34 cities drawn from each provincial, district and tehsil headquarter. A detailed questionnaire was distributed to 169 libraries and the result concluded that there were only 128 local bodies which provided library facility in the country. There were 346 cities and towns in the country which did not maintain a proper library. The result of the survey interpreted that the services provided by these libraries were unsatisfactory, thus proving that the libraries failed to create a positive impression of the value and utility they were expected of. The strength, competence and performance of the staff, too, were unsatisfactory.
Similarly, Khurshid(1998)  Haider(1998) has surveyed the development of public libraries before and after the freedom of Pakistan. The study focused on the advancements, at its best, has been piecemeal, and at its wors t, non-existent. He identified that knowledge of indigenous needs and realistic approaches are important factors need to be considered for planning of libraries in order to get far more than before. For betterment of Pakistan"s public libraries six factors are pointed out as vital for the planning process, which can also be helpful for other developing countries.
In Hanif(1992),it is suggested that libraries should be modernized, specially the public library, in two distinct direction; first, using the technology in library housekeeping, second, to change the concept of the library-what a library is or is to be. On the basic of above concept, he divided the functions of libraries into three broad divisions. 1. Collection and Preservation 2. Dissemination of information and 3. Provision of material to user for reading in the library premises as well as on loan for study bat home.
Khan(1992) has corroborated that a public library is the masses" only free institution of education, but unfortunately, the public libraries of Karachi do not have a well-coordinated system for facilitating its users" needs. At the time of Jamshed Nusserwanjee Mehta, the first Mayor of Karachi and remembered as the maker of Modern Karachi, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) is providing better facilities through museums, libraries, reading rooms, etc. In Pakistan, public library system has not received the reorganization and financial assistance it needs. It is not undisclosed that public libraries in Karachi are certainly not operating properly without ample budgetary support.  7 investigates that in 19 th century the massive changing occurred in the society. One of which was establishment of the Karachi Metropolitans Corporation. When Sir. Charles Frere was the governor of Sindh, he established the Frere Hall Library under his supervision and that was the revolutionary period of Sindh. After that further different libraries established, but according to study, there was lack of library resources that became the ultimate cause of libraries" drown. of libraries use e-mail for reference service; and 5) 32.9% provide online library catalogue with in-home access, 11% provide online library catalogue with Internet access, 17.8% have other catalogues and databases on CD-ROM. The study concluded with the remarks that the main deficiencies observed in IT services in the public libraries are lack of adoption of standard for information exchange and processing, use of database administrators instead of integrated library systems, lack of information quality control, and less use of information and communication technologies for service provisions." Karisiddappa (1999) has discussed the areas of technological usage to carry out operations of library such as development of computerized bibliographic databases, bibliographic services via online, regional and national networking, and creating non-bibliographic databases, bringing the evolution and application of technology from conventional to contemporary age. To satisfy the increasing demands of the public the study also shows the functions of satellite based nationwide computerized communication network for e.g. NICNET, GISTNIC, and DISNIC. Finally, emphasis was made over the requirement of internet access and skilled professionals at public libraries.
Keenan et.al. (1981)have given a report of the details of the research project on Bibliographic Information Retrieval On-line services (BIROS). It was carried out jointly by Manchester Polytechnic and Lancashire County Library. The objectives of this project were to trace out the effect of the services provided to attain information about motivation and the reaction of staff and users to the services and to analyze the level of satisfaction from those services. The British library supported the experimental development of four public libraries" online information services in order to appreciate this project. These libraries were namely: Birmingham, Liverpool, Lancashire, and Sheffield. The project resulted in the providing of set essential guidelines for the on-line services. This study revealed the following facts: 1. "An on-line service increases the demand for books and increases inter-library loans; 2. Much time has to be spent by the staff for training, updating knowledge, for practicing search skills, and for actually carrying out searches; and 3. The type of end-users attracted to this service depended on the nature of services offered." Chatterjee and Das (2015) provide an overview of library automation and the changing scenario of library management. The influence of ICT has changed the library operation and its functionality to a faster and more efficient mode. Users need not frequent from one shelf to another in search of a document; instead, they receive it simply by sitting in front of a desktop. Automation has reduced manpower. In this article the authors discuss the concept of automation, its requirement and the various components which help to automate library. Some software commercial software package also enlist which are available for automation purposes. The authors, moreover, also discuss the difficulties related to the library automation program.
Muhammad et al (2014) reveal in their study the present level of automation in the libraries of selected Management institutes in the city of Aligarh. Questionnaire and informal interviews was used for this study. They selected samples through the stratified sampling method, collected the data randomly and examined the questionnaire. The finding shows that three of four libraries are moderately automated , except Al-Barkaat, which is fully automated. Seventy% of librarians consider that services of libraries are improved by automation, while eighty-five% of users admit that modern automated system are far better than the manual systems used traditionally. Three of the four libraries lack qualified and trained human resources to manage automation. Haider (2007) has investigated that hurdles in application of automated library management system in Pakistan"s libraries are systematic planning of automation, software and hardware collection, absence of standards, financial restrictions and most importantly, lack of enthusiastic and competent human resource. It is enforced that for the development of information policy, increasing technological awareness, and counseling and for betterment of staff, organization of users" educational programs keen attention must be given and emphasized the planning by each library regarding automation of library operations.
Similarly, Tiwari (2002) notices the automation in the 90s as a highly conflicting matter, in terms of resources, skills and abilities. Library automation has been drastically changed in the past years, which started with a individual task and has grown by including the use of computing and telecommunication tools. Today, there is library without walls 510 and that utilize technological advancements to promote the services, resources and relationship present between libraries and resources universally. This virtual library, earlier referred to as the library without walls, therefore, is a reality.
Based on this, the future is assumed to be providing services not only to experts of it but will include information kiosks; having access on all information even with minimum or no knowledge of computer. Information scientists are supposed to develop human computer interfaces, while library scientists will be managing the resources accordingly.
Dilroshan (1998) studies and highlighted that library automation is just the first step. Understanding and coping with upcoming changes and developments in information and communication technology is vital. Huge investments over the collections and services of library could be lost, if the libraries got unable to face the challenges successfully. Malik (1995) stated that In 1980s the automation in libraries of Pakistan was introduced and a number of libraries have continued to be automated since 1987.
In Sheeba and Jayaramam (2017), discussed the goals, objectives and requirements necessary for the advancement of tools and techniques for library in a developing scenario. This paper also explains the different steps of software selection.
Maureen and Blessing (2011) provide a framework for the designing of automated library management of state universities, Nigeria. The authors stated that this research would support university libraries to keep a track of all transaction perform by securing library user"s information, as well as correctly locating library material easily, and tracking of charging and discharging of material. The findings were used to design an ALMS for Delta State University in Nigeria.
Matoria (2007) describes the status of library management system, e-Granthalaya, for public libraries in India. This was the efforts of the Indian government's National Informatics Centre (NIC). The study focused on the comprehensive deployment of this software at a national level along with its potential and challenges.

Survey Analysis and Interpretation of the Data: -
Karachi city is the capital of Sind which is administrated under Local Government System. It is crucial to understand the administrative hierarchy of Local Government as it impacts the sole infrastructure of public libraries. The survey of public libraries has been done to analyze available Intellectual resources, Human resources, Financial resources, Library Sections, Technical Management of library holdings (Cataloguing and Classification), available Services and IT facilities. Intellectual Library resources means total holdings and asset which include Books, News Papers, Magazines, Audio Video Cassettes and Manuscripts. Human resource means the employed staff by provincial and local government for running public libraries. Financial resources represent the individual budget allocated to each library by government. The Existing Library Sections are Acquisition, Circulation, Reading rooms, Reference Sections, Periodical Section, Technical Section, Children Section, Computer Section, Research and Rare book Sections. It has been observed that least IT infrastructure exist in libraries which affect the management and service quality and automation in public libraries as a whole. In this survey, all existing thirty public libraries were visited. All the libraries are ordered according to lexicographic principle for identification purpose and thus are assigned numerals from 1 till 30 as shown in Table-1Among

Human Resource in Libraries
Professional Semi Non professional 513 Government offices Budget Book. Fig-5 shows that the allocated budge is slowly increasing in an exponential way with an average of 200 million per district.

Survey Finding and Process Modeling:_
Librarians are the key users of LMS which are mainly responsible for providing right and timely information to Patrons. We identified a major automation gap by survey analysis of public libraries. We have observed that major work in LMS automation is Patron Oriented. There is an equal and immense need to automate various manual processes with respect to Librarians in addition to library Patrons. Major processes of an LMS are Acquisition, Circulation and Cataloguing. We in this research Identify and conceptualize different processes specially with respect to librarian. The purpose of conceptualization not only helps in process automation but also provide an advance and technical bird view of ALMS architecture.

Survey Findings
Through thorough study of public libraries of Karachi, it was found that the libraries handle all housekeeping operations manually. In the case of Acquiring books libraries send all request to the publisher or book seller manually which was so time consuming. In the collection development department also knows as Acquisition section, books are registered by writing down the details of each book such as the date the book, accession number, author, title, publisher, year of publication number of copies on the accession register (a document used in maintaining the collection of books in the library). This form or method of books registration is inefficient. Staff from other departments take part in classification and cataloging of books due to shortage of professional staff. From Manual system is also involved in the processing of issuing and discharging book in the libraries. Students applies for membership card in the library. The application lists the terms and conditions of the charge agreement and requires student"s signature. The student uses the card for issuing books for a week or 15days. When students want this book for more periods then he or she bring this book and re-issue it from the library. In the case of losing book and late return, the student pays the fine as per library policy. Automated library management system will be helpful and to all public libraries to convert their manual process into automated system. Specially book order process, member registration, registration of new books, location of the book in the library section, easily issuance and return the books and update the library record and monitor the library services.
Conceptualization Framework:-All the interactions of librarians have been modeled as processes which in turn comprises of many activities. The main purpose of process and activity modeling is to identify variables, events and interactions involved an LMS for modeling of various LMS modules and information structure. To conceptualize, we categorize library activities into two main types depending on their effect on LMS. The activities which will affect the state of the library in terms of its collection and services provided to reader will be treated as Active activity while the activities which are simply request to outside world will be treated as Passive activity in an LMS. Active activities or group of such activities are valid candidate for Events or procedures of an ALMS. All the major processes, variable, activities, their types along with time duration is listed in Table 2s Acquisition Process: -The Acquisition process initiates with patron need based survey on yearly basis as per rules. The demand of Patron will be verified by librarian to avoid unnecessary duplication of library material. He also uses international bibliographic tools such as publisher catalogue and national bibliographies for the validation of public demand. Such bibliographic tools also help in analyzing purchase cost of demand material. Once the demand is verified, the librarian is supposed to place order to vendors provided that funds for purchasing are available. For local material the order usually arrives in 2 weeks but for international demand, the shipment will take at least 4 weeks (1 month). The checking of received books and other library holdings is the mandatory responsibility of librarian. The processing of received items not only include entry in registers but also involves bill preparation which will be sent to finance department for audit purpose. The work flow model in Fig 6 shows the whole acquisition process from user request to bill preparation. Among all activities of Acquisition process there come across certain other activities which are part of this process but will not affect the state of any LMS for e.g. request of quotation from vendors. Similarly order Evaluate activity involves invoice preparation which is simply send to finance department. All above discussion has been listed in 515  Classification classification of library holdings is first main technical job done by librarian. Subject wise Classifications an integral part of LMS as this process help to organize by library resources according to subject. Dewey Decimal Classification scheme (DDC) is the most popular scheme which are using almost all public libraries for organizing library material. According to DDC the classification number of any book comprises two parts. The first part represents the domain according to Dewey classification while the second part stands for specific subject of that domain for e.g. 003.3 is an example of classification number. When we look into DDC first summary we assign it main class Generalia, if the title of book is not listed in the standard subjects defined by Dewey for book organization. After assigning it to class Generalia, librarian supposed to read from second DDC summary where he or she identifies003 as Computer and Internet systems. Once the subject is identified from second summary, the base subject can be fully identified from third summary. This number mainly serves as an access point for both librarian and Patron. For e.g. if a query comprises of text "Psychology of Boys" then the DDC generator must generate 155.432 where the 3-digit base number represents 3 levels of major subject hierarchy while the n digit fractional part represents subsequent deep levels of relevant subfields. In base number, UNIT place represent main class, TEN place represent the next down level of main class and similarly HUNDRED is one level more down of the that main class. The similar multilevel hierarchy is observed in relative part of DDC number such as 0.1,.01,.001 and so on.

516
Cataloging Library catalogue is the most important tool for searching library material within a library it is also called as location tool and arranged in alphabetical order. It contains complete physical description of book Such as Accession No, Call No, Name of the Author, Title of the book, Subject Heading and ISBN, Place, Name of publisher and date of publication. All public libraries prepare catalogue cards according to Standard Anglo-American cataloging code-2 (AACR-2 code). The librarian will enter physical description of book or holdings which user will access to find his desired book.

Circulation
Circulation process mainly deals with end users of public library. This will become the access point of all stake holder of library which mainly includes book readers and librarian. Circulation process in public libraries starts with user registration. Once a user is registered, he or she can request for book borrowing or periodical reading. As there are millions of items available in the library, it is impossible to locate the desired item without catalogue. The registered user search in catalog for his desired book, note down its call number and provide it to library staff for the issuance of that particular book. As we already discussed that all the library holding will be organized in a systematic manner using DDC numbers, the librarian will check the availability of requested item and if it is not already reserved or issued, the book will be given to user for reading. It depends on user that he will take book to home or read it in library premises. It is important to note that periodicals or serials are not taken to home as per library rules. The flow of circulation is conceptualized in Fig -7. 3. PALMS should provide offline working capability to its users. 4. PALMS should be robust enough to handle unforeseen scenarios; hence it should provide backup and restore features. 5. PALMS should possess flexibility with respect to both software and hardware; thus should run on different operating systems. 6. PALMS will incorporate the promotion of reading and research culture in region among communities at national and international level by social networking and event notification system 7. PALMS will satisfy timely demand of readers via book recommendations based on user reading and research patterns. 8. PALMS should provide contact point for vendors to facilitate acquisition and satisfy user access demand. 9. PALMS should facilitate library staff via automated classification and cataloguing system.
In order to facilitate home users, visiting users, library staff and vendors to access PALMS data repository with varying ranges of access devices like mobiles and desktops, PALMS will provide data access for different levels of user needs. In proposed PALMS Environment, the technical library staff of a particular library can access PALMS regional Database for user management, handling acquisition, classification, cataloguing and circulation. Though creation of user facility is available to technical library staff but the user will avail searching facility only after synchronization of local database to regional database. PALMS permit home and library visitors to access library catalogue remotely through web. Pre-selected vendors and book suppliers can also be given privilege to access available books in library but the current system needs to mature in the sense that all the manual processes for e.g. quotation request, order placement, purchasing and billing processes will also be handled automatically in future systems.

PALMS Layered Architecture
The architecture that best meet the design goals of PALMS is multi-tier Client Server Architecture. The Client/Server model is best available option in contrast to purely centralized and peer to peer networking as it is cost effective, flexible, and speedy and provide better user interface. The client side of PALMS represents desktops, laptops, and/or mobile devices (smartphones, iPads) which are physically disbursed at different geographical locations in or outside of libraries. The client devices are given privilege to access a small backup database which holds its own library user, book, serial and vendor information so that the system remains accessible and functional in absence of internet connectivity (i.e. offline mode). Once internet becomes accessible; local device immediately syncs data with PALMS regional server (two-way sync). Every client device runs its own independent client-side application to interact with authenticated users i.e. TLS (Technical Library Staff). The public library visitors are considered as authenticated users in proposed architecture and thus will access regional storage through web applications from anywhere where internet connectivity is available (home, office, etc.). All end users including vendors and suppliers will access regional server to retrieve information regarding existing book records.
The regional servers play very important role as it is the central access point for all libraries for a region. In PALMS will store all the regional data of public libraries in a Regional Storage system, where regions are based on geographic basis instead of density of network traffic because every region should be given privilege to maintain its own data center. For e.g. recently UK has detached from Europe, it need its own data repository to be operational in the region with same previously available resources. Secondly due to this regional storage, security and privileges can be enhanced. The final component of system architecture is global Database whose main role is to sync all information from regional servers. This server will help in extracting user reading pattern and will help in generating reports at global level.
The architecture presented in fig 10 can be transformed into its equivalent layered architecture of fig 11on the basis of human user interaction pattern. Whenever an interaction is initiated by a user on server side, it will promulgate into system through pre-defined user interface (UI) within the Presentation Layer. During requested interaction fulfillment execution, it traverses through various layers. For instance, followed by presentation layer, there comes security layer whose main responsibility is to manage access patterns of system based on registered user"s access rights. The registered user will invoke certain predefined procedures on client side to access and retrieve all stored information of books, serials and library holding from data access layer utilizing pre-written stored procedures, functional and/or plain queries. Data access layer on server side will provide requested information to registered user(s) from regional data storage. Data access layer communicates b/w server and client using secured protocol. 519 Figure 10:-Client Server Layered Communication Mechanism

PALMS Application Architecture
The PALMS application architecture has been built on MVC (Model View Controller) Design Pattern to intact modularity, extendibility and ease of use. MVC provides developers with better code reuse and parallel development to make future changes and/or enhancements robust and easy. According to rule of thumb for best architecture, modifications must be minimum and all the future changes would be incorporated as insertions. Fig 11represents MVC architecture design of PALMS. PAMS have multiple modules to make application loosely coupled for example if Finance is taken out from the application, the rest of the modules must remain functional.
Each module might have Models, Views and Controllers whose definition is given below:

Model:
Classes which holds data like value object classes Controller is responsible to execute proper function of a module, in response to user interaction with view any of component. Whenever an event occurs, it first invokes the respective event handler in controller. The event handler in controller, validate the event data and send its response back to controller in the form of yes or no. In case of 520 "yes", the controller invokes the corresponding module functionality. Every request from user and any response history is maintained in logger through PALMS controller.  Table  .Since our application does not need very complex API support we can drop the SQL and MangoDB options. This greatly simplifies the installation process for the end user. They don"t have to worry about starting services in correct order to make system work properly. Now we were left with two options SQLite and NeDB. After extensive testing we went for NeDB due to its faster query response and seamless integration with the system. Since every library has its own local database, there must be a way to combine all that data into a single searchable repository, on which users can perform queries. The functional requirements of this database are different from local database. In this case we had a lot of options to choose from. The table given below describes some options. It is quite clear from the above table that we went with the NoSQL option for e.g. MongoDB. Complex querying mechanism causes a bit of overhead NoSQL Really simple yet flexible ORM based querying system. Easy to Less mature than SQL but stable enough for our purposes