Automated Circulation System

Automated Circulation System For several decades now, ingenious librarians and library equipment manufacturers in western countries have designed circulation systems using: the latest technology. The advent of the computer in the 1960" and microcomputers in the 70s and 80s radically altered ground rules. Now all sequences of encoded elements are possible and information on any management data can be derived. Important statistical data pertaining to collection use and library users can be obtained by manipulating the data accumulated in the circulation process. However library automation extends beyond circulation functions into the more integrated systems of cataloguing, acquisitions, decision support systems and virtually all other library operations. Advantages of speed, the ability to manage large amounts of data, and the long term trends of increasing computer power and decreasing cost have attracted libraries to automated circulation. In the developed countries of the world, it is now possible for all but the smallest libraries to have access to and control their material through the current range of computers. The situation in India may not be as promising; however a slow process of change is taking place in at least the special libraries towards computerisation. The computers were expected to enter other types of libraries too by the next decade or so. An increasing number of university and college libraries already are to be moving towards automated circulation systems