Around the World To: Koç University's Suna Kiraç Library

Citation

Akbaytürk, T. (2003), "Around the World To: Koç University's Suna Kiraç Library", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 20 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2003.23920eaf.003

Around the World To: Koç University's Suna Kiraç Library

Around the World To: Koç University's Suna Kiraç Library

Tuba Akbaytürk

Introduction

Koç University is a private, non-profit institution founded in 1993. The university is located in Istanbul, Turkey. It is composed of the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Administrative Sciences and Economics, the College of Engineering, Graduate School of Business, Graduate School of Engineering, and School of Health Sciences. Doctoral degree programs in engineering will be awarded starting with the 2003-2004 academic year. Current full-time enrollment is 1,904 undergraduate and 152 graduate students. In addition, 240 faculty are teaching in the 2002-2003 academic year. The medium of instruction at Koç University is English. A minimum TEFL score of 550 is required for students.

Koç University library system consists of Suna Kiraç Library, located on the main campus, and a branch library situated at the School of Health Sciences. The Library has a collection of 131,618 bound volumes, 270 print journal subscriptions, 28 online databases and over 12,000 electronic books. The Library acquires materials primarily in English and in Turkish to support the curriculum and the research needs of the faculty. The Library staff includes 20 librarians, eight library assistants, and 60 part-time student employees. The Library has 46 OPAC stations and 47 staff computers. Additional network slots and wireless network access cards are available for laptop users in the Library. The Library's Web site is accessible at http://library.ku.edu.tr/

Innovations in information technologies and Suna Kiraç Library

Suna Kiraç Library (see Plate 1), as a young library celebrating its tenth anniversary, always gives priority to adopting the most recent information technologies to increase its service quality. Never having housed a card catalog and having replaced CD-ROM databases with their Web-based equivalent are just two examples of this constant effort.

Plate 1 Suna Kiraç Library

The areas on which this effort primarily concentrates are:

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  enriching the electronic resources collection and extending accessibility to users;

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  automating routine library processes in every possible way.

Electronic resources in Suna Kiraç Library

The first introduction of CD-ROM databases took place in 1995. Until 1999, the number continued to grow and reached 46 CD-ROM databases. In the same year, the first Web-based databases, namely EbscoHost's Academic Search Elite and Business Search Elite, were subscribed. Owing to the shift toward Internet technologies, CD-ROM databases were gradually dropped over the years and 28 Web-based databases are subscribed through site licensing for the 2002-2003 academic year. Suna Kiraç Library is a founding member of the Anatolian University Libraries Consortium (ANKOS). As a result of consortial purchasing, the number of subscribed resources has been substantially increased with significant savings in costs.

An important recent development is the implementation of Millennium's Web access management module, which allows the faculty and the students to access the Library's licensed databases from home. This remote access service will be extended shortly to all electronic journals, which number over 8,000. The availability of these e-journals from scattered sources triggered the idea of setting up a union list of journals. The searchable Journal Finder database, created and maintained locally, allows users to identify and access a journal of interest from a single source.

The other recent addition to the electronic resources collection is e-books. Around 12,000 e-books are subscribed for 2003 through Ebrary and Safary Books Online.

The Library believes in the importance of user training to increase the outcome of the investment made in electronic resources. With this perspective, in addition to the user instruction sessions taught by reference librarians in the instruction room housed in the Library, an online tutorial called "Searching e-resources for your research project" was made available from the library's Web site.

Suna Kiraç Library's experience with library automation

Suna Kiraç Library purchased the DOS-based PC version of Bilkent Library Services System (BLISS) in 1993. BLISS is a Turkish library automation system developed and marketed by Bilkent University located in Ankara, Turkey. The main reasons for choosing BLISS were its very affordable price and the idea of supporting a locally developed system. The initial system implementation started with the cataloging, circulation and OPAC modules. Late in 1995, a UNIX version of BLISS was released. The data transfer and the implementation of the acquisitions module were completed in May 1996. An incomplete Web OPAC was delivered in 1999.

Because of delays in the BLISS development plan, resulting in the serials module never being delivered, and the fact that BLISS stayed behind the third generation library automation systems, Suna Kiraç Library decided to replace BLISS with a state-of-the-art library automation system. Following completion of an in-depth systems analysis, a Request for Proposal was prepared. Among the bids submitted, the Library Systems Committee selected Innovative Interfaces' Millennium system in January 2000.

The system migration was a real challenge as bibliographic data were not in real MARC21 format. As a result of an intensive data conversion project, bibliographic and item records were transferred to Millennium. Owing to format incompatibilities between the two systems, the transfer of order and patron records was abandoned.

Following the completion of staff training, the cataloging and then the circulation module were launched. The BLISS and Millennium circulation modules ran in parallel for a short period of time, until all BLISS patron accounts were freed. The library waited for two years to shut down BLISS, since the acquisitions staff needed to consult the old order records from time to time for various reasons.

The conversion from III's proprietary RDBMS to Oracle took place in summer 2001.

Latest developments

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  Electronic Course Reserves. The Millennium Electronic Course Reserves was introduced two years ago. This module enables the creation and the accessibility of digitized reserve collections. The students may access the collection seamlessly via Web browser after user verification. Copyright control and comprehensive usage reports are just two of the many strengths of electronic course reserves.

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  Implementation of the Data Loader interface for expedited ordering from Blackwell's Collection Manager. Suna Kiraç Library works with Blackwell's Book Services for UK titles. Collection Manager enables faculty, as primary selectors in the collection development process, to choose titles directly from this database. Acquisitions staff, using this interface, can download bibliographic and order records into Millennium and transmit the orders electronically to Blackwell's.

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  ODBC connection to Millennium and Active Server Pages. Prior to the conversion to Oracle, it was impossible to query and create dynamic Web pages with listings of recently acquired books, for instance. The ODBC connection brought lots of flexibility, enabling page design for various purposes. So far, recent acquisitions, DVD and video collections pages have been prepared.

Ongoing projects

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  In recognition of the emphasis put on library Web sites, Suna Kiraç Library decided to redesign the organization and content of its Web site. This project was to be completed in April 2003.

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  The University moved to its new permanent campus in summer 2000. After streamlining all workflows impacted by the design of the new building as well as the new Library system, the Library saw the necessity of preparing a virtual Library tour to help orient users to the location of primary services and collections distributed throughout the building. The tour is being produced in Macromedia Flash and will be launched shortly.

Conclusion

Today, libraries all around the world are facing the complex issue of change management. On the one hand, there is an increased demand for customized services. On the other hand, there is a high proliferation rate for electronic resources competing with the traditional ones. The idea of becoming a digital library challenges most libraries. In the light of these indicators, Suna Kiraç Library holds a leading position in Turkey's academic arena. Its ultimate mission is to adopt appropriate state-of-the art information technologies and apply them to enhance its services for the benefit of its users.

Tuba Akbaytürk(tukbayturk@ku.edu.tr) is the Senior Systems Librarian at Koç University Libraries, Istanbul, Turkey.