Design of Library Automation Systems: File Structures, Data Structures, and Tools

Design of Library Automation Systems offers the most thorough treatment available on the application of computer science techniques to information management problems. This groundbreaking volume is a completely integrated presentation of library automation design. Complete with hundreds of tables and illustrations, it provides copious examples of online catalogs, circulation systems, acquisitions systems, and serials systems.

The first comprehensive introduction to the design, construction, and implementation of library automation systems

Design of Library Automation Systems includes:

• A comprehensive introduction to the design of library automation, including the four types of library computer systems: online catalogs and information retrieval systems, circulation systems, acquisitions systems, and serials systems
• Extensive examples of file structures and processing procedures for these systems, along with sample data
• Detailed presentation of software tools used to build library automation systems, including file managers, indexing programs, parsers, and search systems
• Design of special applications including authority control, accounting systems, bibliographic record display systems, record editing programs, and client/server applications
• Use of Z39.50, Z39.58, and HTML methodologies and standards in software design

For information scientists in software development, programmers, analysts, managers, students, and anyone dealing with issues of automation in the library or information retrieval, this book is destined to become one of your most frequently consulted references.

Michael D. Cooper is Professor in the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches courses in the design of library and information systems, database management systems, computer file organizations, and computer data structures. He is the author of more than thirty journal articles and two previous monographs.