Vinod Chachra - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Vinod Chachra
Two years ago the NDLTD steering Committee requested that VTLS Inc. build a union catalog for NDL... more Two years ago the NDLTD steering Committee requested that VTLS Inc. build a union catalog for NDLTD. Such a catalog has now been built and can be accessed at www.vtls.com/NDLTD. This presentation will discuss the nature of the NDLTD Union Catalog for ETDs and why it was important to build such a catalog. The present status of this multilingual union catalog will be discussed followed by a brief demonstration of the system. The presentation will finish with a discussion on how the union catalog is kept updated and how your library can participate in this project. Suggestions for improving the union catalog and increasing its usage will be discussed with the audience.
Information Technology and Libraries, Jun 1, 1993
In the introduction to his book The Work of Nations, Robert B. Reich states, "We are living ... more In the introduction to his book The Work of Nations, Robert B. Reich states, "We are living through a transformation that will rearrange arrange the politics and the economics of the coming century. There will be no national products or technologies, no national corporations, no national industries ... Each nation's primary assets will be the citizens' skills and insights. . . ." TRANSFORMATIONS This is a period of transformations: transformation from the industrial age to the information age; from structured hierarchical organizations to unstructured, networked organizations; and from high tech to high value. Welcome to the information age. At the peak of the industrial age fully 65 percent of the U.S. labor force was employed in industrial production and less than 4 percent in agricultural production. By the mid-1980s, more than 50 percent of the U.S. labor force was involved in nonindustrial, information-related fields. This number has been growing as industrial and manufacturing jobs have declined to below 25 percent in the 1990s. NETWORKED ORGANIZATIONS In the industrial age we focused on muscle multiplication, the process of leveraging our physical capabilities. It was marked by highvolume production with repetitive tasks. Structured hierarchical organizations were best suited to manage this environment. In the information age we focus on idea multiplication, the process of leveraging intellectual capabilities. It is marked by creativity and innovation. The tasks are rarely repetitive. Structured hierarchical organizations are not suited for this environment. Knowledge workers need to interact with other individuals independent of rank or position. Sproull and Kiesler, in their book Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization, define a networked organization as "one in which all employees participate fully in the information life of the organization, independent of geographic, organizational or social location." According to Richard Nolan, combining new technology with old organizations always gives disappointing results. Organizations themselves must change to take advantage of new technologies. Library directors beware! PAYING FOR INFORMATION Pricing and costs are always sensitive issues. As we complete the transformation from the industrial age to the information age, we find increasingly that the cost of the product is based on its intellectual content and less on its physical content. Books, CDs, and computer software are examples of products that fall in this category. For example, the VTLS software you receive on tape has a reproduction cost of around ten dollars. The several thousand dollars that you pay for the software is for the intellectual content of the software; the physical content is indeed very, very small. Let us carry this concept to the extreme. Imagine a situation where the physical content of the information we buy is down to zero. This is not an unrealistic situation, for this is exactly what happens when we copy software or information off a network. Suddenly, we have difficulties with this concept. Accountants get confused; no shipments are received; no packages are opened; hardly an audit trail exists; but the information is transferred, and a charge is levied. Some have difficulty in adjusting to this concept. But this is exactly what we will have to get accustomed to when we start accessing multimedia information from virtual libraries (or virtual bookstores) over national and international networks. REAL BOOKS ARE NOT DEAD YET Before we get into the topic of virtual libraries holding virtual books for real borrowers, one must raise the question of real books. Are real books really dead? We all know the answer to the question. Books are not dead--at least not yet. Your reasons for this conclusion may differ from mine. And you probably have good reasons. For me, there are two important reasons why books are not going to die soon. …
CAUSE/EFFECT, Sep 1, 1982
Information Technology and Libraries, Mar 1, 1992
D-lib Magazine, 2001
The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is a collaborative effort of un... more The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is a collaborative effort of universities around the world to promote creating, archiving, distributing and accessing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). Since its inception in 1996, over a hundred universities have joined the initiative, underscoring the importance institutions place on training their graduates in the emerging forms of digital publishing and information access. The outreach and training mission of NDLTD is an ongoing project so in this article we report on the current status of membership and support activities. Recent research has focused on creating a union database that will provide a means to search and retrieve ETDs from the combined collections of NDLTD member institutions. The Virtua system developed by VTLS will serve as the heart of this union database. In order to bridge the gap between the existing distributed institutional archives and a unified collection of ETDs, we have developed a metadata standard especially suited to ETDs - this is then used by partner sites to export their freely-available metadata using the Metadata Harvesting Protocol of the Open Archives Initiative. We also link name authority information into the metadata records to support unique identification of authors and others associated with the works. Additional research efforts include advanced search mechanisms, semantic interoperability, the design and development of multi- and cross-lingual search systems, and software modules that support the development of higher-level services to aid researchers in seeking relevant ETDs.
CAUSE/EFFECT, Nov 1, 1981
New Directions for Institutional Research, Dec 1, 1984
Proceedings of the 6th conference on Winter simulation - WSC '73, 1973
internationally recognized lecturer, consultant and innovator in the field of information system ... more internationally recognized lecturer, consultant and innovator in the field of information system planning. Beginning in 1975, he designed the original library system that was responsible for the creation of VTLS Inc.- Visionary Technology in Library Solutions. VTLS is an international leader in integrated library automation, digital imaging services and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The company provides state-of-the-art library automation systems to more than 900 libraries worldwide. 1. Overview Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is the technology that is slated to replace barcodes in library applications. It is a form of identification that is contact-less and does not require line of sight. The technology, though new to libraries, has been in use in other sectors for more than 20 years. The RFID tags are placed in books and generally covered with a property sticker. Antennas of different sizes, based on application, are used to read the tags and manage the v...
Two years ago the NDLTD steering Committee requested that VTLS Inc. build a union catalog for NDL... more Two years ago the NDLTD steering Committee requested that VTLS Inc. build a union catalog for NDLTD. Such a catalog has now been built and can be accessed at www.vtls.com/NDLTD. This presentation will discuss the nature of the NDLTD Union Catalog for ETDs and why it was important to build such a catalog. The present status of this multilingual union catalog will be discussed followed by a brief demonstration of the system. The presentation will finish with a discussion on how the union catalog is kept updated and how your library can participate in this project. Suggestions for improving the union catalog and increasing its usage will be discussed with the audience.
Information Technology and Libraries, Jun 1, 1993
In the introduction to his book The Work of Nations, Robert B. Reich states, "We are living ... more In the introduction to his book The Work of Nations, Robert B. Reich states, "We are living through a transformation that will rearrange arrange the politics and the economics of the coming century. There will be no national products or technologies, no national corporations, no national industries ... Each nation's primary assets will be the citizens' skills and insights. . . ." TRANSFORMATIONS This is a period of transformations: transformation from the industrial age to the information age; from structured hierarchical organizations to unstructured, networked organizations; and from high tech to high value. Welcome to the information age. At the peak of the industrial age fully 65 percent of the U.S. labor force was employed in industrial production and less than 4 percent in agricultural production. By the mid-1980s, more than 50 percent of the U.S. labor force was involved in nonindustrial, information-related fields. This number has been growing as industrial and manufacturing jobs have declined to below 25 percent in the 1990s. NETWORKED ORGANIZATIONS In the industrial age we focused on muscle multiplication, the process of leveraging our physical capabilities. It was marked by highvolume production with repetitive tasks. Structured hierarchical organizations were best suited to manage this environment. In the information age we focus on idea multiplication, the process of leveraging intellectual capabilities. It is marked by creativity and innovation. The tasks are rarely repetitive. Structured hierarchical organizations are not suited for this environment. Knowledge workers need to interact with other individuals independent of rank or position. Sproull and Kiesler, in their book Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization, define a networked organization as "one in which all employees participate fully in the information life of the organization, independent of geographic, organizational or social location." According to Richard Nolan, combining new technology with old organizations always gives disappointing results. Organizations themselves must change to take advantage of new technologies. Library directors beware! PAYING FOR INFORMATION Pricing and costs are always sensitive issues. As we complete the transformation from the industrial age to the information age, we find increasingly that the cost of the product is based on its intellectual content and less on its physical content. Books, CDs, and computer software are examples of products that fall in this category. For example, the VTLS software you receive on tape has a reproduction cost of around ten dollars. The several thousand dollars that you pay for the software is for the intellectual content of the software; the physical content is indeed very, very small. Let us carry this concept to the extreme. Imagine a situation where the physical content of the information we buy is down to zero. This is not an unrealistic situation, for this is exactly what happens when we copy software or information off a network. Suddenly, we have difficulties with this concept. Accountants get confused; no shipments are received; no packages are opened; hardly an audit trail exists; but the information is transferred, and a charge is levied. Some have difficulty in adjusting to this concept. But this is exactly what we will have to get accustomed to when we start accessing multimedia information from virtual libraries (or virtual bookstores) over national and international networks. REAL BOOKS ARE NOT DEAD YET Before we get into the topic of virtual libraries holding virtual books for real borrowers, one must raise the question of real books. Are real books really dead? We all know the answer to the question. Books are not dead--at least not yet. Your reasons for this conclusion may differ from mine. And you probably have good reasons. For me, there are two important reasons why books are not going to die soon. …
CAUSE/EFFECT, Sep 1, 1982
Information Technology and Libraries, Mar 1, 1992
D-lib Magazine, 2001
The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is a collaborative effort of un... more The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is a collaborative effort of universities around the world to promote creating, archiving, distributing and accessing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). Since its inception in 1996, over a hundred universities have joined the initiative, underscoring the importance institutions place on training their graduates in the emerging forms of digital publishing and information access. The outreach and training mission of NDLTD is an ongoing project so in this article we report on the current status of membership and support activities. Recent research has focused on creating a union database that will provide a means to search and retrieve ETDs from the combined collections of NDLTD member institutions. The Virtua system developed by VTLS will serve as the heart of this union database. In order to bridge the gap between the existing distributed institutional archives and a unified collection of ETDs, we have developed a metadata standard especially suited to ETDs - this is then used by partner sites to export their freely-available metadata using the Metadata Harvesting Protocol of the Open Archives Initiative. We also link name authority information into the metadata records to support unique identification of authors and others associated with the works. Additional research efforts include advanced search mechanisms, semantic interoperability, the design and development of multi- and cross-lingual search systems, and software modules that support the development of higher-level services to aid researchers in seeking relevant ETDs.
CAUSE/EFFECT, Nov 1, 1981
New Directions for Institutional Research, Dec 1, 1984
Proceedings of the 6th conference on Winter simulation - WSC '73, 1973
internationally recognized lecturer, consultant and innovator in the field of information system ... more internationally recognized lecturer, consultant and innovator in the field of information system planning. Beginning in 1975, he designed the original library system that was responsible for the creation of VTLS Inc.- Visionary Technology in Library Solutions. VTLS is an international leader in integrated library automation, digital imaging services and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The company provides state-of-the-art library automation systems to more than 900 libraries worldwide. 1. Overview Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is the technology that is slated to replace barcodes in library applications. It is a form of identification that is contact-less and does not require line of sight. The technology, though new to libraries, has been in use in other sectors for more than 20 years. The RFID tags are placed in books and generally covered with a property sticker. Antennas of different sizes, based on application, are used to read the tags and manage the v...