The Library Online Catalog. It looks straightforward and effortless. A user can hardly imagine the amount of work involved in pulling these together.
System software keeps track of all the items in the collection, from the moment they are ordered.
It 'knows' where they are, when they are due back, who else has asked for them, what courses items are reserved for, and what fines need to be levied. Here, statistics are collected and analyzed for patterns, budgets are maintained and fund allocations adjusted in a constant ballet of electronic synergy. Months of discussing, testing, modification, and adjustment were needed before we could bring the first journal citation database online. We continue to work with the ILS vendor to make improvements, such as exploring different ways to index the terms used in the subject searches, in order to make it more effective. For the past year, we have been coordinating a team of designers and engineers from four companies in three countries.