To keep librarians’ role as information providers in the electronic age, they need the help of someone who speaks this language i.e. “Information Technology Specialists”. Electronic information has led libraries to change their way of creating, sorting, & providing information. As a result, with the help of IT, libraries have developed more sophisticated online catalogues allowing patrons to check the availability of books online, retrieve full-text articles faster and enhanced the student learning experience in an electronic environment. In this presentation, we will be discussing the collaboration between Library & IT at the Lebanese American University by giving highlights on the successful projects they implemented together.
IT–Library CollaborationSupporting Library Applications @ LAUBY Hani Salem 27/4/2011
To keep librarians’ role as information providers in the electronic age, they need the help of someone who speaks this language i.e. “Information Technology Specialists”. Electronic information has led libraries to change their way of creating, sorting, & providing information. As a result, with the help of IT, libraries have developed more sophisticated online catalogues allowing patrons to check the availability of books online, retrieve full-text articles faster and enhanced the student learning experience in an electronic environment. In this presentation, we will be discussing the collaboration between Library & IT at the Lebanese American University by giving highlights on the successful projects they implemented together.
The IT Departments at LAU are responsible for the University's information systems, infrastructure and their security. This includes the servers, databases, networks, phones, video conferencing systems, Internet, email, Banner Student Information System, Library Systems, University Administrative Systems, Alumni Systems and Course Management Systems.IT is composed of three departments:IT Infrastructure & SupportIT Applications & SolutionsIT Security
The ITA&S department is responsible for all enterprise software application such as : OLIB, E-reserve, Blackboard
1.Analyze the functional requirements with the systems librarian staff.2.Study the feasibility of integrating the request within current available solutions.3. Study the feasibility of having the request to be developed internally.4.If the above 2 solutions were not feasible then, an RFP (Request for Proposal) process will be initiated by coordinating with the systems librarian to gather all the needed system requirements5.Send RFP to local and international proposed vendors.6.Evaluate the Functional and Technical responses of the vendors to select a winner .7.Install and setup process will start with a cooperation between IT and the vendor8. Training and implementation.9. If needed, customizations will be managed by IT.
Technical Support by supporting active directory and hardware problems.Functional Support by providing applications operations support and training end users on certain functions or modules.
The IT role besides the systems and applications include:Monitor System PerformanceEnsure Data integrity & availabilityProvide BackupsA Disaster Recovery for all main applications and services were implemented on 2008 in order to assure the systems and services availability
An-Nahar local news papersZportal Federated Search enginesThe online databases are authenticated based on IP addresses associated with LAU networks. As a result, to provide access to these outsources from outside LAU networks, the IT department has installed an application called EZProxy that acts as an intermediary between users and the databases