APPLICABILITY OFIN INDIA FOR

SESSION B

COMPUTER INSTALLATIONSLIBRARY WORK

Faster, cheaper and more versatile computersare being developed by the computer industry. Com-puters facilitate the pr ocee amg of control and serviceinformation in a library and make the library servicemore effective and uaeful , The spa r e capacity onmany computer facilities inlndia can be advantagouslyused for undertaking the feasibility study of process-ing the control information.

INTRODUCTION

Autornatac cornput e r s were developedduring the Second World War, but it was notuntil middle of fifties that these were COITl-rne r c ia.Hy available. Since then, c orriput.e r-technology has made astounding progress.Faster, cheaper and rno r e versatile c ornput e r sare being developed by the cornput e r industry.Alongwith this dev el oprnent , hurnan ingenuity'too has not been lagging. There is hardly anyhurrian activity left, where cornput e r s havenot been used or are not being tried. Thefirst industrial revolution saved rrian of physi-cal labour and cornput e r s , by saving ~an'ofITlental-routines, have begun the second'industrial revolution. In fact, whereverthere is any Infoz-matton to be processed.computers either exist or have potential ofbeing existing.1 In this sense, it will not betoo much to call computers as info r mat ionhandling machines or simply info rrna tionmac htnea,

LIBRARY

Library is a system or an organisationthat handles 'information'. In this context.the term 'infermation' has a special signifi-

-c ,

80

AS Raizada

cance. It stands for communicated facts orin other words puQli-ebed facts or data. Here,the terms, facts and data are considered asundefined. In a library. the information isprocessed before it can be handled. The pro-ce s sing of Info r ma.tton may involve all con-ceivable operations on the infor matton with theobvious exception of ignoring the information.It ITlay rn ea n recording, t r an srrritt ing, memo-rising, abstracting, extracting, separating,sorting, me r gIng , cornpa r ing , cornpfl ing ,sequencing, presenting or even discarding.The characteristic feature of a library is thatthese operations are performed both on infor-mation and on the physical or material counter-part i. e. doc urne nt s or books. From thispoint of view a typical library has bothrna.te r ia l flow as well as infor=ation flow,

TYPES OF INFORMATION

Broadly speaking, a library handles andprocesses two rna in categories of information.These ITlay be termed as 'Managerial orControl' and 'Service' information. TheControl Info r rna t ion is required for regulatingthe daily operations, for effecting high levelcontrol, for fo r mul at ing right policies andfor i.mpl.erne nt ing the se policies. This kindof info r mat ion includes the information onbudget, order and receipt of new books andperiodicals, circulation, control, info r mat ionetc. The Service Info r mat ion pertains to thecataloguing, indexing, bibliographic activities.A Librarian or an Information Scientist needsboth these types of information for managing awell run and efficient information service.

Ann Lib Sci Doc

APPLICATION OF COMPUTER

In the Western countries computer hasbeen reported to have been used for process-ing both these types of information. Theresults are that libraries are being managed,effective"iy with greater utilization of publishedinformation, and with faster service. Whileconsidering the computer applications, it maybe indicated that irrespective of the nature ofapplication involved, computers have beenused in any of the following eight modes ofoperations:

1. Open-loop system.1.1 Off-line directly coupled.1. 2. Off-line indirectly coupled.1.3 On-line directly coupled.1.4 On-line indirectly coupled.2. Closed-loop system.2..1 Off-line directly coupled.2..2. Off-line indirectly coupled2..3 On-line directly coupled2..4 On-line indirectly coupled.

The concepts of on-line, off-line, directand indire~t coupling, is a matter of hard-,I'ware configuration of the computer. Suffice ~sto say that the computer is 'on-line' if the inputto it is unmediated by humans, it is off-line ifthe input to the computer is coded, punched,verified and fed by human agency. If the com-puter gives the processed information to thesystems, or to users by means of transmis-sion channels, it is the case of a directlycoupled. Otherwise if the output is given bythe way of listing or reports etc. that has tobe mailed or delivered to the users the com-puter is said to be indirectly coupled.

For the purposes of information service,the computer has been mostly used as an open-loop system both in off-line as well as on-linemode.

COMPUTER FACILITIES IN INDIA

Computers appeared on the Indian scenein the middle of the present decade, in rathera big way. In fact, the computer age in Indiastarted with the establishment of the computerCentre at Indian Institute of Technology,Kanpur during the close of 1962land the begin-ning of 1964. There are about 12.0computers

Vol 16 No 2 June 1969

<: ::"1<. I;\STALLATIONS

installed in about 106 organisations scatteredin about 24 towns all over India. There is aconcentration of these in cities like Calcutta,Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore hav ing 23, 2.8, 15,and 8 computers respectively. There areabout 20 computers installed at universitiesand other research institutions. Most ofthese computers are functioning in off-lineand indirectly coupled mode of operation.

TYPES OF COMPUTERS

The Table given in the annexure pre-sents an analysis of available computer faci-lities in India. The table is based on the dataavailable with the Computer Society of India.It is interesting to note that nearly half of theinstallations are small-size, business-orient-ed, second generation computers. There areonly two large size second generation compu-ters available in the country. These are atBombay and Kanpur. As many as four thirdgeneration cornpute r s are being planned to beinstalled in the country. This analysis isbased on the data-available at the Cornput erSociety of India.

FACILITY AT DELHI

At Delhi there are six IBM 1401 installedat S. B. Mills, Northern Railway Headquarters,Railway Board, Registrar General of Census,IBM Service Bureau, and Indian Airlines.Most of these have a 8 K memory, four tapedrives, card read and punch, and an on-lineprinter. There are four IBM 1620, three ofthese are model 11 and only one is model 1.All the model II have a 40 K memory, threedisk drives, a card read punch and on on-lineprinter. In addition to these, there are fiveHoneywell 400 installed at the GovernmentComputer Centre and at Joint Cipher Bureau.Apart from these, there is an Elliot-803installed at the Telecommunication ResearchCentre.

SUITABILITY REQUIREMENT

In India computermation of library anddocumentation operation started during 1964(1]. Since then quite a few isolated operationand services have been computerised [2,3].The suitability requirements that are beingpresented here are based on experience gainedduring the past five years.

81

COMPUTER

The library information is expressedmostly in alphabetical form. The processingof the information in a library involves thehandling of large mass of data or large infor-mation files. This requires cheap storagefacilities, fast access to the stored informa-tion, fast input/output devices and medinmsize core memory. This implie s that thecomputer facility should have on-line magneticstores either as magnetic tapes or disks. Acombination of both is to be preferred, onaccount of the compact storage on tape andfast access on disk. Without the externalon-line memory, a cornput er facility is of noavail in the processing of either the control orthe service information. The computer faci-lities should preferably have a card inputdevice. A fast on-line printer is the outputrequisite for any computer facility, if it isgoing to be useful in library operations. Allthese considerations are based on the fact thatthe library applicat.ions of computer involvesa large amount of data input, few processingoperations like comparisons, transfers, selec-tions etc. and fairly large output as opposedto computational applications where the inputis small,. processing is large and the outputis small.

Since the configurational details of allthe computer installations in India are notavailable, it is difficult to enumerate all thosefacilities that are suitable for library opera-tions. However, the facilities satisfying theabove mentioned criteria are suitable forlibrary operations. Some of these are, IBM1620's installations at CMERI, Durgapur; DSE,lARS, lit PEO, at Delhi; CDC-3600 at TIFR,Bombay; IBM 1401 and 7044 at Kanpur; IBM1401 at S. B. Mills and Registrar General'sOffice at Delhi; ISI, Calcutta; and ICL 1903 atHMT, Bangalore etc. This list of installationsis based on per sonal knowledge and is not ex-haustive.

AVAILABILITY AND ACCESSIBILITY

The other group of factors determiningthe suitability of the computer facilities belongto the availability and accessibility of thecomputer. This gains a fair degree of im-portance in the absence of 'on-line' directlycoupled computer facilities in India. Certainfacilities may be available for library use,

82

RAIZADA

but may not be easily accessible and vice-versa. Since the nature of library operationsrequires both availability and accessibility,that as far as possihle the requisite facilityshould be available on the carnpus, In thi scontext SOITleof the cornputer facilities instal >

led at IIT, Kanpur; DSE, Delhi; TIFR, Bombay;CMERI, Durgapur; 151 Calcutta are ideallysuited for exploratory studies in computerizinglibrary operations. However, the librariesin the private-sector may benefit by usingspare capacity on computer facilities installedin their organisations provided the facilitymeets the configurational requirements.

COST

Last but not the least, is the cost factor.As a matter of fact, in India, the major de-laying factor in expe rimenting wi.th the com-puters has been the cost which is being ·.:.c.,,·

sidered rather prohibitive. It will be worth-while to examine it in some detail.

The cost of computerisation includes thefollowing:

1. Information Preparation Cost:2. Programming Cost; and3. Machine Cost.

1. Information Preparation Cost

In the absence of on-line facility forreading library texts all the information thathas to be processed by the computer must becoded, punched and verified. The punchingmay be of cards or of tapes. Apart f r orn thelow speeds, the preparation cost is fairly high.Most of the service bureaux charge at the rateof Rs.150/- to R.s, 250/- per thousand punchedcards. However, at some of the computerinstallations, the punching facility is includedin the cornpute r rental. Further this cost canbe shared by a group of similar libraries asmost of the information that is to be proce ssedmay eventually turn out to be common. Theselibraries ITlaythen use the disk or tape fileswhich are comparatively cheaper to copy.

2. Programming Cost

The rnajor share of the total of the COITl-puterization goes to the pr ograrnrrring, OnegovernITlent organisation charges for pro-gramming at the rate ofRs.l,OOO/- per pro-grammer month. It must be stated that thetime required for programming a problem it'

Ann Lib Sci Doc

APPLICABILITY OF COMPUTER INST ALLA TIONS

\ the most difficult to ascertain and no norms. exist for estimating it. The time needed fordeveloping a pr og r arrirn e is a function of theexperience of a pr og r arnrne r , clear and un-ambiguous formulation of the problem, andthe nature of the problem itself. However,this cost can be brought down by sharing pro-gramming cost in a joint project. In such anevent the libraries having an access to s irrn la rtype of com put e r facility may cooperate witheach other. The other method of reducing theprogramming cost is to buy the tested pro-grammes. The purchasing of these pro-grammes have drawbacks of introducingrigidity in solving a problem arising out oflocal variations. Programming cost has tobe considered as one time investment.

3. Machine Cost

Include s the rental of the machine forthe time used. The time of use may includethe testing and debugging runs of the pro-grammes and the final runs. Most of theacademic and research computers offer theirfacilities at an hourly rate varying fromRs.190/- to 6001- per hour depending on thesystem.

INSDOC '5 EXPERIENCE

An attempt was made at Insdoc to findout the co st of indexing by computer. Thefigures are as follows:

a) Punching and Verification ofabout 2, 500 cards per monthneeding 60 man-hours. Rs . 160. 00

Cost of the cards Rs. 60.00Rs. 220. 00

b) Computer timeAuthor Index

1. Input at the speed of500 cards per mt. 1.5 mt s ,

2. Sorting 1,500 names 2 mts.

3. Sequencing 1,500 names 2 mts.

4. Index printing of 1,500narne a at the speed of250 lines lInt. 6 mts.

Total tirne : 11. 5 rnt s , = 12 Int.

5. Cost of the computertiIne at the rate ofRs , 3/ - per Int. i. e. Rs.36/-

Vol 16 No Z June 1969

c) Key world Index Computer time

1. Input at the speed of450 card per mt. 4 mts.

2. Sorting 2,000 terms 5 mts.

3. Sequencing 2,000 terms 15 mts.

4. Index printing of 2,000lines at the rate of200 lines per mt. 10 mts.

Total time: 34 mts.

5. The cost of the computer time at therate ofRs.3/- per minute isRs. 102/ - approx.

The computerised preparation of themonthly indexes to the Indian Science Abstractscosts Insdoc about Rs. 350/- or Rs.400/- inround figures.

The annual cumulation of these indexestakes about 8 computer hours and cost aboutRs.l, 500/- at the rate of Rs.190/- per hour.

Programming cost came to aboutRs. 3,000/- for these jobs.

The cost analysis of the compilation ofthe Mysore fascicule of the Union Catalogue isbeing undertaken and will be reported later.

CONCLUSION

It is concluded that:

1. Computers facilitate the processingof control and service information in a libraryand make the library service more effectiveand useful.

2. There is a sufficient spare capacityon many computer facilities which are suitablefor this type of work on an off-line use.

3. It will be advantageous to use thisspare capacity for undertaking the feasibilitystudy of processing the control informationby computers.

4. In order to utilise this facility thereis a need for libraries to have a suitableperson trained on the use of c orripute r s . Thistraining must have a orientation differentfrom that of computational applications of acomputer.

83

5. In order to cut down the costs, it isessential that these studies should be under-taken on co-operative basis and as joint pro-jects by a group of libraries.

6. These feasibility studies shouldinclude studies to ascertain the extent ofquantitative and qualitative improvements inthe management and services of the librariesparticipating in such joint project.

7. It will be extremely useful if in thisSeminar some areas for experimental com-puterisation are identified alongwith the parti-cipation of joint projects.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Author wishes to record his gratefulthanks to Shri B. S. Kesavan who has beenmainly responsible for all the encouragement,sympathy and understanding so vitally re-quired for for ging ahead in a new field like

84

RAIZADA

[1 ]

[2]

(3]

computer a pplj.ca t ion, Thanks are due to thePresident andS~cretary of the ComputerSociety of India for making the data availableat such a short notice.

REFERlN CES

RAIZADA A S: Automation in Doc urnen-tation. Union Catalogue Processingby Digital Computers. Ann Lib Sci& Docum 1964, 11(4), 54-76.

RAIZADA AS, HARAVU L J,' ARORAA M: Keyword index to IndianScience Abstracts. Ann Lib Sc i& Docum 1967, 14(1), 20-33.

HARAVU L J, RAIZADA A S: Compu-terized Data Retrieval: AnExperiment with IBM 1620. AnnLibSci&DocumI967. 14(2),76-8&

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