Tamil Nadu project 'linking' 4,620 libraries to make book hunting easier

There is a saying that researchers spend about as much time finding a book as they spend on reading it. And that happens because they have to go from library to library just to find out if a book they want to read is housed there. The search is frustrating and often times a lot of material remains unread by a seeker simply because it could not be found. Libraries have catalogues but union catalogues—a list of the combined holdings of several libraries—is rare given the difficulty in creating it.

If you are, however, a researcher, a student, or a knowledge seeker, in Tamil Nadu, you may soon be able to cut down on your book hunting time and route it to actual reading.

There are 4,640 functioning libraries across Tamil Nadu under the control of the Directorate of Public Libraries. Even though each library maintains a catalogue of its own, so far there was no common platform where one could access the catalogues of all libraries across Tamil Nadu. Some old libraries are known for their rare collection of books. But there was no way for someone sitting in a remote village of Kanyakumari or Pudukkottai to know about it.

To solve this, the Directorate of Public Libraries developed a union catalogue under the Tamil Nadu Innovation Initiatives (TANII) scheme for 32 District Central Libraries, the Connemara Public Library and the Anna Centenary Library in the state. The idea behind launching a union catalogue was that “it could act as a single tool for searching all books available in all public libraries in Tamil Nadu”.

The initiative got a tremendous response from people but those running the initiative were faced with some errors and repetitions in the cataloguing process. So, the union catalogue is currently being rectified by the Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL) in Chennai. There are at least 35 lakh entries to be checked thoroughly before being placed in the union catalogue. The work is underway to integrate the complete catalogue records of 32 district central libraries operating under the Directorate of Public Libraries, the Connemara Public Library, the Anna Centenary Library and the Roja Muthiah Research Library.

A team of three, working under R Prakash, has finished standardisation of the catalogue of 15 lakh books belonging to 32 district central libraries in Tamil Nadu. “There are many repetitions in the catalogue so we are correcting them based on the records given to us. All these records are being standardised according to the MARC21 standard (a set of codes used for cataloguing) by the Roja Muthiah Research Library. These records have been integrated as a union catalogue and hosted using the Koha open source software in the Anna Centenary Library server,” says G Sundar, director of RMRL. As the first step of this project, minister for School Education Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi launched the union catalogue for seven lakh records a month ago.

A union catalogue may be defined as a well-maintained combined catalogue of various libraries that can provide the bibliographical description of the holdings of each library. “A union catalogue is the collection of the bibliographical details of the printed books, serials, theses and other documents available in different libraries. One can search once and get all the bibliographical details of the books available in each library at one place while the actual holding is located elsewhere,” says Sundar.

Researchers feel that union catalogue is the best option for librarians to disseminate the holding information of libraries to a wide range of users. “It is a useful tool for resources sharing, inter-library loan and document delivery services whether the collection is physical or virtual or both,” they say. “I live in Marthandam. Even though Tamil Nadu has a well maintained public library in every district, I come straight to the Anna Centenary Library in Chennai for reference. The main reason being I don’t know if the book I am looking for is available in the libraries close to my place. The union catalogue will be useful for researchers like me,” said Selvarajan S, a research scholar.

It was in 1948 that public libraries were opened in Tamil Nadu under the Tamil Nadu Public Libraries Act. The Directorate of Public Libraries was formed in 1972 to improve library services. There are 4,640 libraries functioning in Tamil Nadu under the Directorate of Public Libraries. They are district central libraries (32), full-time branch libraries (314), branch libraries (1,612), village libraries (1,915), part-time libraries (751), mobile libraries (14), Connemara Public Library (1) and Anna Centenary Library (1).

Even though many universities and libraries have launched union catalogues, this is the first time a state government has brought in such an initiative on large scale. Online Computer Library Centre (formerly Ohio College Library Centre) is the leading international agency which provides the largest union catalogue of the world named as WorldCat.

“WorldCat is the largest union catalogue which provides the bibliographic description of the holdings of the about 10,000 libraries across 170 countries of the world. It is created and maintained by OCLC [Online Computer Library Centre]. The world’s largest bibliographic database provides information about books, DVDs, CDs, and articles,” says Sundar.

IndCat is a result of the efforts of the INFLIBNET Centre which is an online union catalogue with holdings of 121 Indian universities and institutions. It contains a unified online library catalogue of books, theses, and serials of the participating universities and institutions of India which covers their bibliographic description, location and holding information.

“So far the union catalogue initiatives came from the academic community only. The pioneer effort in India, especially in Tamil Nadu, is to create a union catalogue for public libraries. We have to finish the remaining 20 lakh in one month,” says Sundar. “The main problem is repetition. Many entries have been repeated in the catalogue. The libraries also maintain different editions of the same book. We need to check the name of the publisher and year of publication properly,” he added.

M Arun Raj, a research scholar, says the union catalogue will help many like him if maintained well. “It’s a great initiative. As researchers, we normally spend a lot of time searching for a book. The union catalogue will be helpful mainly because it will give us a clear idea about the book we are looking for. It is just a click away, but it should be maintained well,” he says.

While a union catalogue makes life of researchers and scholars easier, its maintenance remains a challenge, according to Sundar. “The maintenance of the union catalogue is a continuous and never-ending process. The currency of the union catalogue should be maintained because only a well maintained union catalogue can serve as the discovery tool for end users to provide various services such as resource sharing, inter-library loan and document delivery services etc,” he says.

Raj adds that proper awareness among students and researchers about the functioning of the union catalogue is necessary. “The Directorate of Public Libraries should create awareness among people about the union catalogue and its importance so that more people, mostly students and researchers, benefit from it,” says Raj.

(The union catalogue is available at: http://tamilnadupubliclibraries.org)