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65th IFLA Council and General |
Type of Libraries | Number of Libraries |
---|---|
National Library | 1 |
State Public Libraries - Main State Public Library - Territory Libraries - Branch Libraries - Town Libraries - Village Libraries - Mobile Libraries |
14 3 92 54 247 97 |
Rural Community Centre Libraries - KEMAS, RISDA, FELDA - Library Under Local Government Authorities - Others (mosque, etc) |
216 201 258 |
University Libraries - Government - Private |
11 3 |
University Branch Campus | 30 |
Institute of Higher Learning Libraries (College/Institute, Polytechnic, Teachers Training College, MARA Junior Science College) |
(110) |
Special Libraries - Ministry/Government Department - Statutory Body/Private Agency |
186 (207) |
School Resource Centres - Secondary Schools - Primary Schools |
(1,538) (7,084) |
TOTAL | 10,362 |
Note: (The number of libraries has increased to approximately 11, 000, i.e. in addition to 600 new private colleges).
Source: Zawiyah Baba. "Seventh Conference of Directors of National Libraries in Asia and Oceania (CDNLAO) - Malaysia: A Country Report." Sekitar Perpustakaan, bil. 27 1998.
The Document Delivery Supply system, known as Inter-library Loan among libraries before, has been part of the resource sharing effort among libraries. One of the main advantages of this system is that libraries can, to a certain extent save as they are not necessary to buy materials that are already available in member libraries. The Document Delivery System consortium among libraries, initiated by the National Library of Malaysia was formed in 2nd June 1998, with the objective of encouraging local delivery services and to enable easy access of information at local and international level. The Document Delivery Supply system is a part of the National Availability of Publication which is part of the Universal Availability of Publication Program, initiated by IFLA and supported by UNESCO. Most of the inter-lending and document delivery processes are still operated manually. With the widespread use of Telnet and Internet searching of bibliographic records activities would be easily done.
Table 2 shows the number of members involved in the Consortium of Documentation Supply. The National Library, all the university and public libraries are involved and the number of special libraries and information centre is on the increase.
Types of Library | Number |
---|---|
Academic and University Libraries | 40 |
Government Departments | 125 |
Commercial Agencies | 37 |
NGOs | 79 |
TOTAL | 310 |
The Tun Abdul Razak Library of University of Technology MARA (UTMARA) has been a member of this consortium since the 15th July 1988. Despite the economic slowdown at the present moment, the system is regarded as even more important in ensuring that the teaching and learning process is not affected.
The services rendered includes the borrowing of books, photocopied articles and print-out from data bases. Two services given are identified as:
The total number of staff involved for these services are two. A short survey was conducted on sixty three students from the final year. Although clearly there is an indication of their awareness of the existence of the service, there is a clear reluctance on their part to take advantage of the service. A short survey on 66 students of the Faculty of Information Studies provides some data on their perception towards the ILL services that could be used to further improve the document delivery programme. Although 54 of them are aware of the availability of the service only three have used it so far. Most of them, that is 35 say that they are not satisfied with the service in terms of delivery services as well as the promotion of the service itself.
Overall, the following table 3 revealed the extent of the demand of the users both internal as well as external users up to August, 1998. The total requests for the services is 934, with only 247 from within the university users. Appendixes 1-3, however look at the case of three main institutions that have close association with the university. The total number of requests from the three institutions UTMARA for the services was only 26 while the number of requests made by UTMARA to outside institutions is only 34. 1 It is therefore necessary for the library to give assessment so that the confidence level of the users in general could be maintained.
Month | LoanOut | Loan | Total |
---|---|---|---|
Jan | 28 | 7 | 35 |
Feb. | 112 | 41 | 153 |
Mar. | 69 | 7 | 76 |
April | 38 | 4 | 42 |
May | 19 | 6 | 25 |
June | 90 | 45 | 135 |
July | 77 | 38 | 115 |
August | 63 | 24 | 87 |
Sept. | 67 | 8 | 75 |
Oct. | 54 | 24 | 79 |
Nov. | 60 | 27 | 87 |
Dec. | 10 | 15 | 25 |
TOTAL | 637 | 247 | 934 |
It would be worthwhile to compare the extent of the inter-lending and document supply services in the Universiti Technology Malaysia, based on the 1998 research conducted by Rashidah Abdul Rahman of the Document Delivery System in this library. 2 The study was made based on the interview to the staff responsible for the inter-lending service of the UTM library. Data and statistics was also provided by the library based on the library's records. The findings indicated a more success story in the response from the users, although the success of the delivery from the other institutions leaves much to be desired. (see table 4 ). In 1995 the number of requests was 1265, and in 1996, 1260, but dropped to 1178 in 1997. The higher response from users as compared to UTMARA may be due to the fact that, UTM has been a full-fledged universiti for along time and graduate studies and research has been the order there. The findings revealed that researchers are given higher priority for the services.
Tahun | No. of Requests | Successful supply | Percentage |
---|---|---|---|
1994 | 1188 | 580 | 48 |
1995 | 1265 | 625 | 49.1 |
1996 | 1260 | 631 | 50.1 |
1997 | 1178 | 596 | 50.6 |
Tahun | No. of Requests | Successful Supply | Percentage |
---|---|---|---|
1994 | 350 | 198 | 52.4 |
1995 | 407 | 165 | 40.5 |
1996 | 435 | 253 | 58.2 |
1997 | 365 | 183 | 50.1 |
Table 5, on the other hand shows the request made by institution to the UTM library for document supply. There has not been much increase in the demand while the success rate of document supply has been about 50 per cent from 1994 right through 1997.
Tahun | Books | Percentage | Articles | Percentage |
---|---|---|---|---|
1994 | 123 | 10.4 | 1065 | 89.6 |
1995 | 190 | 15 | 1075 | 85 |
1996 | 192 | 15.2 | 1068 | 84.8 |
1997 | 203 | 17.2 | 975 | 82.8 |
Table 6 above revealed that the number of requests for articles far exceeded the number of requests for books, from 1994 through 1997. The requests for articles exceed more than 80 per cent every year as compared to books.
The present economic problem has indeed slowed down the recruitment of new staff. The UTMARA library, like most libraries is still under-staffed and as such, only two professional staff are provided to man both the internal and external requests for information. This problem is compounded with similar lack of staff in other department within the library that would otherwise help in speeding the flow of the services. The table 7 below shows the below shows the total number of personnel involved in the system in eight academic libraries in Malaysia. It can be said that the number of personnel will have bearings on the extent of the services that could be rendered. Future more, the number is not consonant to the number of students and academic staff who constitute the library users. In UTMARA for example, the total number of students is 60,000 and 3000academic staff, against 2 staff manning the document delivery system. The UNIMAS is still very new with much less number of students, yet the department is manned by 3 staff.
No. | Name of University | No. of Personnel |
---|---|---|
1 | University Teknologi MARA | 2 |
2 | Universiti Sains Malaysia | 4 |
3 | University of Malaya | 2 |
4 | Universiti Putra Malaysia | 4 |
5 | Universiti Utara Malaysia | 3 |
6 | Universiti Teknologi Malaysia | 3 |
7 | Universiti Malaysia Sarawak | 3 |
8 | International Islamic University | 2 |
One of the main problems faced by the administration of the service has been the turn around time. In general most institutions share the fact that the delivery time spent for delivery from other local institutions is between two to three weeks while materials that are needed urgently could be delivered between two to three days. For materials requested from abroad may take up to two weeks. Basically, most institution share the same problems associated with the late delivery for the requested items and they are:
It must also be reiterated here that although commitment towards ILL services is given it is by no mean without its own limitation. The success of the inter-lending and document supply services is highly dependent on the commitment, support and creativity, not only from the libraries but also from all authorities involved. The main goal of the document delivery system is to provide access to all sources of information both local and international. Concerted effort should be made by most institution to promote the inter-lending and document supply services in light of the current financial constraint. Turnaround time has been one factor that affects user satisfaction on the document delivery services. The application of IT has helped to a certain extent in the reduction of the routine tasks and also enable fast channelling of requests online. It allows easy means of communication between libraries for information through the e-mail as well using other facilities, such as kurier and facsimile. It is also seen that the rate of fees charged by institution in Malaysia is not standardised. While some libraries' rate is higher than others, there are also certain institutions, which do not require any fee.
1 University Technology MARA. The Monthly statistics of the Tun Abdul Razak Library. Shaha Alam: UTM, 1999.
2 Rashidah Abdul Rahman, Research on the management of the document delivery system in the Sultanah Zahariah Library, Univeristi Technology Malaysia. Thesis, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 1998.
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STATISTICS OF DOCUMENT DELIVERY SUPPLY BY ORGANISATION
JANUARY - DECEMBER 1998
ORGANISATION : UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA
Table is unavailable. Please contact author.
STATISTICS OF DOCUMENT DELIVERY SUPPLY BY ORGANISATION
JANUARY - DECEMBER 1998
ORGANISATION : UNIVERSITI MALAYA
Table is unavailable. Please contact author.
STATISTICS OF DOCUMENT DELIVERY SUPPLY BY ORGANISATION
JANUARY - DECEMBER 1998
ORGANISATION : SIRIM
Table is unavailable. Please contact author.