The Nanyang Technological Institute was established in August 1981. The aim of the Institute at the time was to provide training for practice oriented engineers and students who upon graduation would be awarded the National University of Singapore's (NUS) engineering degree. In 1987, the Institute further expanded to incorporate the School of Accountancy. In 1988, the Singapore government announced that the Institute would be upgraded to a fully-fledged university by 1991, and renamed the Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

The Library will build up its collection based on the same guidelines. From the beginning, the Library had targeted to increase its stock by about 10,000 volumes of books each year for a period of five years. In 1987, with the formation of the School of Accountancy, a second library was established to house a social sciences collection with emphasis on accountancy and law. To date, the library has a total collection of about 120,000 volumes of books and 2000 titles of serials.

2. LIBRARY AUTOMATION

The automation of the Library can be roughly described in three stages, that is, the preparation stage, the microcomputer stage and the turnkey stage.

2.1. Preparation stage

In 1981, library automation in Singapore was in its infant stage. It was difficult to obtain local assistance or advice regarding library automation. At the same time, the NTI library was reluctant to follow the usual library practice of maintaining a card catalogue. This would give rise to retrospective conversion should the library decide to go for full automation. The Librarian was of the opinion that a certain standard had to be maintained so that computerization in future would not cause much problem.

Various possible avenues were studied, and it was decided that the Library should join the MALMARC system as a member. The MALMARC system is a joint project of some Malaysian libraries to maintain a Malaysian MARC database held at the Universiti Sains Malaysia. The advantages of joining the MALMARC system were:

2.2. Microcomputer Stage

Prior to 1987, the computing resources at NTI was quite limited. The Computer Centre was overloaded with jobs from the schools which were given priority. As such, the Library could hardly have a fair share of the use of the Centre's computers. The only computer available at the Library then was an IMS microcomputer which was used mainly as a word processor.

In 1985, an inhouse serials control system was developed in dBASE II. The system consists of a few modules, such as inputting new titles; checking in holdings; printing of alphabetical or classified lists; listings by special requests; accounting; vendors maintenance and some other features. Modifications were made throughout the years. The system is customized to meet the requirement of the Serials Department. As such, the staff find it handy to use and is still in operation today. In 1986, an AV materials control system was developed using dBASE III plus which ran on an ALR PC (IBM AT compatible). The database consisted of bibliographic information of the AV materials including synopses.

With more schools added to the Institute, the Library's Acquisition department was the first department to be under pressure. Besides the normal acquisition routine, there is also the setting up of funds to be used for the new schools. The Department found it difficult to cope with a manual system. An acquisitions system was then developed also on dBASE III plus, to help ease the work load of the Acquisitions Department. The staff were very pleased with the system as manual work was greatly reduced since bibliographic data needed to be typed only once. Functions like ordering, file checking, vendor particulars, accounting, printing of order slips, arrival accessionings, etc. were available on the system. An interface to capture bibliographic data direct from BIBLIOFILE and input into the acquisition system was also written. This made ordering very much simpler if titles were found in BIBLIOFILE. The system ran for two years before giving way to the total turnkey system -- ATLAS. During the two years, the Acquisition Department was able to use all the funds that were allocated without the year end rush that staff had to endure with the manual system.

2.3. Turnkey Stage

1987 was a new milestone for the NTI Computer Centre when a campus-wide local network was installed in July. It provides connection points for about 980 PCs or workstations and about 140 shared printers throughout the campus. The network includes a cluster of three VAX 8800 which serves the academic needs and a cluster comprising a VAX 8530 and a VAX 8200 serving the administrative needs. The Library's turnkey system is installed in one of the VAX 8800 and is accessible throughout the campus via PC points. The ATLAS Library system was selected because it runs on the common VMS operating system on which other applications run. Also, ATLAS adheres to the ISO standard MARC format and has all the library modules, that is, cataloguing, circulation, online public catalogue, boolean search, newspaper indexing, materials bookings, acquisition and serials control.

Using ATLAS makes us a member of the ATLAS family which has now over 100 users. The Library will benefit from the frequent updates and releases enhanced by Data Research Associates, the ATLAS vendor, from time to time. Being part of the campus-wide network, electronic mails can be sent to any members on the network without switching to other terminals. OPAC users can make reservation of titles at any terminals. Reminders and notices are also being sent through Email which has reduced a lot of paper work. Dialing in via telephone through a modem from remote locations to access the OPAC is also possible.

Besides the ATLAS system, several CD-ROM databases such as NTIS, Ulrich's International plus, UMI-DAO and PAIS are available for searching. The use of CD-ROMs help reduce expensive online searches which are now used only when necessary.

3. CONCLUSION

The fine planning of the preparation stage without which, installation of the ATLAS system would not have been as smooth as it was deserves special mention. Since the Library's local information was stored together in the MARC records, the conversion from the SILAS MARC format into the ATLAS was so transparent that it was almost not noticeable to the library users. The whole conversion which comprised 50,000 bibliographic records with about 100,000 items to be linked to the ATLAS records took only 15 hours. The morning after the conversion, the ATLAS system was declared "live". From installation to the "live" stage, no extra labour was engaged, no extra expenses were incurred and most important of all, the Library did not close even for a single day because of the conversion!

We are living in an era of rapid changes. Information technology that is best today may be replaced tomorrow. We need to keep pace with the advancement and be ever ready for changes. For example, the ATLAS in the near future will be introducing window facilities for its users. This will certainly make the compilation of bibliographies at the user's end much easier by means of cut and paste. If there is more than one ATLAS installation in Singapore, it will certainly enhance mutual usage among libraries through intersystem linkages.

REFERENCES

1. Foo, Kok Pheow, "NTI Library-s serials control system," Singapore Libraries 17: 53-57 (1987).

2. Low, Kin Kiong, "NTINET implementation," Information Technology 2: 87-92 (May 1988).