From Card Catalogs to Integrated Library Systems

How Libraries Are Evolving in the Information Age

Jan 8, 2009
Allan Cho

Library Books - SXC.hu User

Integrated library systems, often known simply in library circles as ILS, is used to manage how a library manages its items: including ownership, ordering, and billing.

Comprised of relational databases, integrated library systems separate software functions into discrete programs called modules, which are then integrated into a unified interface.

Card Catalogs

Before the age of computers, the majority of libraries used a card catalog to index its holdings. Such catalogs registered all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, particularly a network of libraries at several locations. A bibliographic item represented any item in the library (such as books, computer files, graphics, maps, etc.), that is considered library-owned material. However, thanks to the invention of automated computer systems which eventually saved the labor involved in resorting the card catalog, libraries began to rely less on manual library workers.

Automated Library Systems

With the emergence of computers in the 1970s, library card catalogs began to be automated. Such automated systems included checking out and checking in books, generating statistics and reports, acquisitions and subscriptions, indexing journal articles and linking to them, as well as tracking interlibrary loans. With computer software programs, instead of having to open up separate applications, library staff could now use a single application with multiple functional modules. As the Internet and world wide web evolved, ILS increasingly offered more functionality related to the Internet.

The Internet and ILS

Major ILS systems eventually began to offer web-based portals where library users can log in to view their account, renew their books, and be authenticated to use online databases, which is how most ILS systems in most libraries are now set up. With ILS, patrons and library items that were signed out could be much more easily tracked, as each item contained a unique ID in the database that allowed the ILS to track its activity. In many ways, ILS improved library catalogs by stretches and miles.

Library Modules include:
Acquisitions (ordering, receiving, and invoicing materials)
cataloging (classifying and indexing materials)
circulation (lending materials to patrons and receiving them back)
serials (tracking magazine and newspaper holdings)
OPAC (public interface for users).

Currently, there are a number of large ILS vendors, of which are private proprietary companies. Most libraries are familiar with these vendors.

Dynix from SirsiDynix
Voyager from Ex Libris

Horizon from SirsiDynix
Symphony from SirsiDynix
Talis (UK and Ireland)
Unicorn from SirsiDynix

Libraries are ever-changing, and computers have been the catalyst for such changes. No longer are libraries the gatekeepers of physical library collections, many users are obtaining new ways of accessing library materials. Integrated library systems are only manifestation of the evolution of the library.