Malaysia is a country with a total land area of 330,433 sq. kms. and a relatively small population of 18.6 million based on the 1992 Mid-year Population Estimate (Malaysia, 1994). It lies in the Southeast Asian region, considered to be the most economically dynamic growth region of the world. It has been able to achieve a remarkable growth rate of 8.9 percent per annum since 1988.

As in many countries all over the world, information technology (IT) has made rapid in-roads into Malaysia. the Malaysian government recognizes IT as a strategic tool that can play a significant role in the national development. Under the 7th Malysia Plan (1996-2000), IT has been identified as one of the development thrusts to sustain the country's phenomenal economic growth and to maintain its competitive edge in the emerging global economy (Malaysia, 1996). The Malaysia Plan is a five-year development plan used by the country since 1966 to map out the development and socio-economic targets to be achieved within each Plan period.

2. THE MALAYSIAN IT THRUST

Besides being one of the key enabling technologies to help sustain economic growth, IT is also expected to propel the country to achieve developed nation status within the first quarter of the next century as envisaged in the country's Vision 2020.

The IT-oriented thrust in the country is evident in the building of sophisticated communications infrastructure and the call for greater IT utilization in the Malaysian society. In early August 1996, the Prime Minister officially unveiled the Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project through which the country will take a quantum leap into the future through multimedia applications. This project aims to create within an area of 50 km. by 15 km., an IT hub with state-of-the-art communication technology and information infrastructure to promote intensive research, development and utilization of multimedia technologies that is unparalleled anywhere in the world. Encompassed within the MSC are the massive infrastructure development centers comprising the Kuala Lumpur City Center, the new government administrative center of Putra Jaya, the new IT City and the new Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The project which is expected to bear fruition by the year 2000, will showcase among others, a multimedia networked paperless administration, a regional telemedicine center, the world's first use of a national multi-purpose smartcard, and a collaborative clusters of universities and corporate research centers. The IT-oriented strategy, the IT infrastructure development and the MSC project, are cogent evidence of the policy agenda of the government to use IT as the spring-board towards creating an information-rich and knowledge-based Malaysian society that can contribute to the ultimate objective of making Malaysia a developed nation by the Year 2020. Underlying the objective of creating an information-rich society, is the capability to use IT to harness the vast amount of information and turn it into a strategic commodity to gain a competitive edge.

3. IT HUMAN RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS

The biggest immediate challenge posed by this thrust on the development and utilization of IT towards the creation of an information-rich society, is the need to nurture an information culture as well as to develop the human resources to meet the increasing demand for IT knowledgeable citizens and workers. There is an urgent need to institute effective IT education and training programs to achieve this.

4. INVOLVEMENT OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

To achieve success in any major policy shift that will have profound impacts on society and the nation at large, policy planners have invariably always directed their efforts at the education system. This is to ensure that changes start at the schools with children who are more receptive and responsive to change. Also the education system is one sector that can respond faster than any other sector of the society to any major changes. This means a greater participation and a more prominent role for the educational institutions in the country.

The present infrastructure in schools needs to be developed rapidly to meet the wide-spread utilization of IT. Various strategies have been formulated or are being implemented by the Ministry of Education to promote the wider utilization of IT in the schools. Under the Sixth Malaysia Plan (1991-1995), a computer literacy program was launched as a pilot project in selected primary and secondary schools in the country. The objective was to expose students to the basic knowledge in computer literacy. Schools were encouraged to set up computer clubs as part of the co-curricular activities. Under the present Seventh Malaysia Plan (7MP) every school in the country will be equipped with at least one microcomputer by the year 2000. Computer laboratories will be set up for schools with a student enrollment of 750 or more by the same period (Star, 1996). There are already plans to create smart schools that will use a wide array of information tools. Schools have been encouraged to connect to the Internet. At the latest count, more than 50 schools have their own World Wide Web or Web homepages. Indeed, this is an indication of some degree of success of the computer literacy programs.

It needs to be cautioned that all such efforts should not be construed as promoting computer literacy per se. It is all too evident that to create a knowledge-based and information-rich Malaysian society, computer literacy by itself is not sufficient to achieve those objectives. Rather, to face the full onslaught of the Information Age today, more focus should be on the access and effective use of information. Thus, computer literacy programs must be complemented by parallel efforts in promoting information literacy to teach the relevant information-related skills.

5. INFORMATION SKILLS IN SCHOOLS

Much effort is still needed to nurture an 'information culture' in the country. Except for isolated cases, information skills are not formally taught (Zaiton, 1993). In the hurried pace of IT development today, and in particular development taking place on the Internet, intensive efforts must be made to teach information skills. There is a need to take exigent measures in order to make a great leap forward in the teaching of information skills.

Users on the electronic information superhighways, are already helplessly thrust into a world where prior knowledge of searching skills are assumed. Considering some of the search engines on the Internet, or more specifically on the World Wide Web, prior knowledge of the prevalent technique of searching using keywords (including the use of Boolean operators) is assumed. It is rather evident that most users are not adequately prepared to comprehend fully this searching mode. A local survey of on-line public access catalogues (OPAC) usage found that a relatively high percentage of users faced problems when using Boolean logic in searching (Laili, 1993). Traditional library skills taught students locational skills, while retrieval skills were not taught. Information skill was a totally alien concept (Zaiton, 1993).

There is indeed a chasm between the ability to access the information sources and the ability to retrieve and use the information effectively. It is imperative that to narrow this gap, users must quickly 'be brought up' to the Information Age and be equipped with the necessary skills. School children today must be taught early to understand the concept and trends in using interactive retrieval strategies, including sophisticated logic searching.

6. SCHOOL LIBRARY AUTOMATION

To teach information skills effectively, it is suggested that a two-pronged synergistic approach should be adopted involving both the computer literacy program and the implementation of an automated library system in the schools. The automated system must minimally support the creation of database of information resources as well as have a search and retrieval capability to use the database. The infrastructure to support such programs must be available. This means that the school concerned must have an adequate collection of a size and range that can support the variety of learning needs and ability, teaching and learning strategies that center around using information and sources of information effectively (Zaiton, 1993).

Automating the school library besides bringing about a more effective way of managing the library collection and creating a better awareness of IT utilization, is also likely to spawn increased interest in information-related programs conducted by the schools.

The foundation of information literacy must be laid in the schools, particularly centered around the school libraries. School libraries today are no longer traditional reading rooms and study halls; they are evolving to become facilitators of information services and gateways to the wider information world (Singh, 1996). Computer literacy and in particular information skill programs taught in the classroom can be reinforced through the use of the school automated library system, thus becoming a test-bed for on-line information searching. Its potential thus extends beyond merely an adjunct service. The school library is an ideal setting for such an endeavor and is in line with the shift in focus to skills-based and resource-based learning propagated by the modern concept of learning. Also, the curriculum for the Malaysian schools has been planned such that the use of the library and library resources are integrated in all subject areas (Hanafi, 1996).

Computerizing the school libraries in the country is indeed a problematic prospect and prognostically one that may not be too encouraging, in view of the sheer number of schools involved. There are currently 1,395 secondary and 6,891 primary schools in the country based on the 1992 figures (Malaysia, 1994). Any consideration to automate all the schools in the country using commercial automated library management packages would be very costly. However, automating the school libraries is still feasible if a cheap microcomputer-based system is available. Emphasis should be on a system with a powerful search engine which can support the teaching and learning of contemporary on-line searching techniques to the students.

7. CDS/ISIS-BASED LIBRARY SYSTEM

This paper describes the development of a microcomputer-based system using the Micro CDS/ISIS ver. 3.07 (hereafter referred to as CDS/ISIS) software as the basis for developing a working automated library system suitable for small libraries. It comprises the application interfaces for creating a machine-readable catalogue and for information retrieval (Teh & Wong, 1996). The CDS/ISIS software is distributed free to libraries and information centers all over the world by Unesco. In Malaysia, the National Library of Malaysia coordinates the distribution of the software and provides training on it. CDS/ISIS has wide application as an indexing tool but its flexibility has extended its use to library automation applications like cataloguing, circulation and information retrieval. This is because CDS/ISIS comes with a built-in subset of the Pascal language that allows local customization and development of user applications and interfaces (Buxton, 1994). Many such customized applications have been reported in the literature (Nieuwenhuysen, 1991). Some good interfaces have also been developed to complement the information retrieval capability in CDS/ISIS.

The application described here is called ONLIS, an apt acronym for On-line Library Information System. The system developed allows small libraries to a create machine-readable catalogue based on the standard MARC format. It is complemented with the information retrieval interface which has full search and retrieval functions, including keyword searching. The electronic catalogue created form the resource database that can be used to teach and give hands-on experience on on-line information retrieval.

7.1. System Design

The overall design strategy of ONLIS emphasized the need to ensure ease of use and to achieve a high degree of user-friendliness. It was decided that the front-end interfaces developed for ONLIS would do away completely with the screen interfaces offered by CDS/ISIS. The working modules were coded from scratch using the built-in CDS/ISIS Pascal language. This will allow the flexibility to include more user-friendly features as the need arises. ONLIS also provides context-sensitive on-line help, a feature notably lacking in CDS/ISIS. Every single program in ONLIS uses the function key F1 to invoke this help feature. This is useful especially for novice users who often need explanation on various screen functions.

7.2. Information Retrieval Interface

The information retrieval interface of ONLIS was given particular attention. The interface provides for the traditional mode of searching in the library environment which includes index searching that allows users to query the database for an item where either the actual title, or the author or the subject is known. However, the powerful retrieval search engine of CDS/ISIS is utilized in the keyword searching mode. This search mode provides for searching terms indexed in the inverted file and extracting all records that contain a word(s) that match the keywords entered in the search expression regardless of the locations of those words in the records. It also provides for a 'limit' search feature which confines search for a keyword(s) to specified fields only. Search prefixes have been introduced to make searching more intuitive. For example, search prefix qualifiers for title (ti=), author (au=), subject (su=), ISBN (bn=), ISSN (sn=) etc. are provided for the purpose.

Boolean and proximity searching are also supported. Symbols are used to represent the Boolean and proximity operators. These symbols are clearly indicated at the bottom status section of the search screen (Figure 1).

The online keyword searching module also provides for the recall of previous search expressions through the use of the up ( | ) and down ( | ) arrow keys.

The features provided in ONLIS using the powerful search engine of CDS/ISIS, is more than adequate to illustrate and teach contemporary searching techniques that are used in most on-line electronic library catalogues and databases, available in the local or global information networks, including the Internet.

Keyword searching has been emphasized as the skill to teach the school children who will be members of the information-rich society of the future. There is a need to introduce it early in the schools even from the primary school years, through the implementation and use of a school automated library system. On-line searching concept and its comprehension cannot be taught and conveyed to students merely through lessons in the classroom. It also needs a resource database which can be provided through the creation of an automated catalogue.

Students must be given tasks which require the use of the automated library system to seek for the relevant information. The tasks themselves should preferably include some elements of research. A search of the on-line catalogue for information on a specific topic or subject should be preferred over a search for specific items. This will enrich the students' experience and sharpen their information searching skills on on-line systems, a quality so crucial in the Information Age.
 

8. PILOT TRIAL

Some enhancements will be made to the ONLIS system before it undergoes a pilot trial. It will be used to teach on-line cataloguing and retrieval to students attending the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) Program at the University of Malaya. Any errors detected and any weaknesses found in the system will be rectified. The trial will later be extended to selected school libraries. The schools will be selected on the basis of their readiness to implement a microcomputer-based automated library system. The prerequisites include that the school concerned must have a properly set-up and reasonably maintained school library, equipped with at least one microcomputer with a configuration that is adequate to implement ONLIS. The hardware requirement is not too demanding, as ONLIS can be implemented even on an IBM or IBM-compatible 286 microcomputer using the DOS operating system. The teacher-librarian or any other persons overseeing or managing the school library must have some basic knowledge in the use of CDS/ISIS.

For the purpose of the pilot study, a few schools have been identified for the pilot study. The teacher-librarians or the teacher in charge of resource centers (as it is sometimes called) are currently pursuing the MLIS Program at the University. These teacher-librarians are familiar with MARC cataloguing, the techniques of keyword searching as well as possessing adequate knowledge in the use of CDS/ISIS. The school libraries involved will be urged to convert their manual catalogues into electronic catalogues. The teacher-librarians must conduct classes on online retrieval using the automated catalogue. The students' progress and their understanding of the underlying concept of keyword searching will be monitored.

9. CONCLUSION

Malaysia has a well-focused strategy that recognizes the potential of IT and embraces it as the enabling technology to sustain its economic growth and to stay competitive in the emerging global economy. The IT-oriented focus for national development has brought about the need to create an information-rich Malaysian society. To achieve the national objectives, a professional IT workforce must be nurtured to face the challenges of the Information Age. This paper suggests that while making the future generation computer literate is a necessary first step, computer literacy and information literacy efforts must converge. The latter includes information skills that teach the technique to seek, retrieve, evaluate and use the variety of electronic information currently available.

The school environment is ideal for the teaching of those skills. Information-related activities should be centered around the school library which can be further enhanced for information-based skills teaching and learning through the implementation of a school automated library system. Although automating the school libraries in the country might seem a problematic undertaking, the use of a cheap and relatively simple system can make it feasible. The CDS/ISIS-based system discussed above can be used to teach resource-based on-line search skills to students to prepare them adequately to harness the global information resources. In this context, it is important that the education IT strategy must embody a long-term plan to automate the school libraries which can contribute towards both the objectives of creating an information-rich Malaysian society and of national development.
 
 

REFERENCES

Buxton, Andrew and Hopkinson, Alan. (1994). The CDS/ISIS Handbook. London: The Library Association.

Hanafi bin Mohamed Kamal. (1996). The library as a lifelong learning center: Curricular strategies for resource based learning. In Libraries in National Development; papers presented at the Tenth Congress of Southeast Asian Librarians, Kuala Lumpur, 21-25 May 1996. Vol. 2, pp. 119-129.

Laili bin Hashim. (1993). Research on the use of OPAC and its implications for libraries in Malaysia. Asian Libraries, 3 (1): 20-27.

Malaysia. Department of Statistics. (1994). Social Statistical Bulletin 1992. Kuala Lumpur: Dept. of Statistics.

Malaysia. The Prime Minister's Department. (1996). Seventh Malaysia Plan 1996-2000. Kuala Lumpur: The Prime Minister's Department.

Nieuwenhuysen, Paul. (1991). Computerized storage and retrieval of structured text information: CDS/ISIS, Version 2.3. Program, 25 (1): 1-18.

Singh, Diljit. (1996). School libraries as catalysts of change. In Libraries in National Development; papers presented at the Tenth Congress of Southeast Asian Librarians, Kuala Lumpur, 21-25 May 1996. Vol. 1, pp. 37-54.

'Smart schools' via the laptop. (1996, May 21). Star, p. 1
 
 
 
 

Teh, Kang Hai and Wong, Sau Foong. (1996). Developing a CDS/ISIS-based online cataloguing and information retrieval interfaces for use in small libraries. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 1 (1): 1-20.

Zaiton, Osman. (1993, June). The school library as a learning and teaching resource: a survey of library use by Standard Six pupils and teachers in selected primary schools in Peninsular Malaysia. Ph.D. Thesis. Loughborough: Loughborough University of Technology.