FEDERAL UNIVERSITY DUTSIN-MA

LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIECNE DEPARTMENT

2020/2021 SESSION, 1ST SEMESTER

COURSE DETAILS
LIS 391: SPECIALIZED INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND SERVICES (2 Credit
Units)
Status: Elective
Lecturer: Salihu Salihu T. Classes: Tuesday, 4 – 6 P.M.
Dept: Library and Information Science Venue: NLR-3
Email: [email protected]
Consultation: By Appointment

Course Content (Course Description as contained in the Students’

Handbook)
The concept of specialized information systems and services; The nature and
characteristics of specialized information systems and services; Community
analysis: strategy and methodology – Information mapping, Environmental
scanning, Information need, & Information behavior; Types and functions of
specialized information systems and services; The application of ICTs to specialized
information systems and services; Management of specialized information systems
and services; and Evaluation of specialized information systems and services.

Course Rationale:
Library and information science training entails preparing individuals to be able to
set up information systems and provide services to different category of users
across various disciplines, institutions, and organizations. While there are various
types of information systems providing general services to their users in general,
specialized information systems are set up to specifically provide tailored services
to specific users. Most librarians only get to have thorough knowledge of specialized
information systems when they eventually find themselves working in specialized
libraries because this course is mostly taught superficially in most library schools in
Nigeria. Library and information science department, federal university dutsin-ma is
keen on changing this narrative as such, this course is introduced to equip students
with theoretical and practical knowledge that will position them to take up roles as
special librarians upon graduation.

Course Objectives
The objectives of the course are:
 a) To acquaint students with digitalized and non-digitalized specialized
information systems and services.
b) To familiarize students with the nature and characteristics of users of
specialized information system and services.
c) To expose students to management and organization of specialized
information systems using standard tools.

learning Outcomes
At the end of this course, students are expected to be able to effectively set up and
manage specialized information systems and services both in digitalized and non-
digitalized environments.

Course Outline
Week 1  General Introduction of the course.
 Definition of Information system from three (3)
perspectives.
 An Insight of Specialized Information Systems.
Assignment 1 and 2 due, to be submitted at the end of
Week 2 and 3 respectively.
Week 2  Nature and Characteristics of Specialized Information
Systems.
 Types and Functions of Specialized Information Systems.
 Services Provided by Specialized Information Systems.
 Beneficiaries of the Services Provided and their
Characteristics.
Week 3  Setting Up Specialized Information Systems.
 Community Analysis - Strategy & Methodology: Information
Mapping, Environmental Scanning, Information Need,
Information Behavior.
Week 4  Management of Specialized Information Systems and
Services including personnel.
 Application of ICTs to Specialized Information Systems and
Services.
Assignment 3 due at the end of week 4.
Week 5  Study Tour of Specialized Information Centers within Katsina
Metropolis.
Week 6  Group Presentation of Report on Study Tour.
 Week 7 - 8  Group Presentation for Assignment 3.
Week 9 - 11  Hands on experience with Classification and Cataloguing
tools for Specialized Information Systems with emphasis on
Legal Information Systems.
Assignment 4 will be due at the beginning of Week 9
and Submitted at the end of Week 11
Week 12  Evaluation of Specialized Information Systems and Services.
Week 13  Revision

Delivery methods
Lectures, assignments, study tour, presentation, and practical classes will be
employed all through the semester. Students must mandatorily attend classes and
actively participate in class discussions. Also, students must participate in group
assignments and must individually present contributions they have made to the
group assignment to the class. Practical classes are the avenues for gaining hands-
on experience in the course, as such, students must be physically present for all
practical classes. Attendance by proxy will not be entertained.

Assessment
Continuous Assessment (C.A.) – 40 marks to be distributed as follows:

Assignment 1 and 2 – 10 marks.

Study Tour and Presentation of Report – 10 marks.

Group Presentation for Assignment 3 – 10 marks.

Assignment 4 – 5 marks.

Class attendance – 5 marks.

Total – 40 marks.

Final Examinations – 60 marks, to cover all topics treated in class.

Reading List
Web resources
1.0 Introduction
This chapter introduces students to the concept of specialized information system.
Information system will be looked at from different perspective after which an
attempt to conceptualize specialized information systems will be made.

1.1 Information Systems

Several definitions of information have been given in literature with the commonest
being “Information is an organized collection of factual data”. Buckland (1999)
identified three common uses of information in the literature and of interest to us is
that of “Information-as-thing”. Information-as-thing also termed information-as-
object can attributively refer to books because their content is informative and they
have the power of conveying quality information and imparting knowledge. On the
other hand, Oxford Online Dictionary (n.d.), defined system as “a set of things
working together as part of a mechanism”. A system can also be viewed as the
coming together of several components to make a whole.
Building up from the definitions above, we will attempt defining information system
from a layman’s perspective by merging these two terms “Information” and
“System”. Information system can be defined as the coming together of different
components for the purpose of providing information. The United Kingdom Academy
for Information Systems (UKAIS) cited in Beeson and Chelin (2015) defined
Information systems as “the means by which organizations and people, utilizing
information technologies, gather process, store, use, and disseminate information”.
Any system that processes information is termed “Information System”
(Ehikhamenor, 2005).
From the very onset of librarianship, several components such as buildings,
collections (books), personnel, and users have been brought together for sole aim of
providing information services to users. It is therefore not surprising for information
systems to be viewed from library and information science professional’s
perspective as libraries giving that a library is defined as a place (physical or virtual
space) where information resources (print and electronic) are acquired, organized,
and managed by trained library personnel (professional and para-professional
librarians) for easy retrieval and use by library users.
The UKAIS definition given in paragraph 2 above, underpins information systems as
a field of study and information systems as the actual systems that are built to
process information and these covers the following:
 Management of data, information, and knowledge and information systems
and services;
 Information in organizational decision making and integration of information
systems with organizational strategy and development;
 Information systems design, development, and maintenance.
 Economic, organizational, social and cultural effects of technology-based
information systems.
For the purpose of this course, information system will be viewed generally as the
actual systems that are built to process information but specifically as libraries and
generalized information system components such as IT (computers,
telecommunications, and office equipment), data/information, people, and
procedures/process which are a subset of the library and will be treated extensively
in chapter 4 of this study material.
2.0 Introduction
Libraries are generally of different types. While students enrolled in this course are
conversant with the various types of libraries such as academic, school, public,
national, private, research, virtual and special, their knowledge of special library is
generally minimal. Most librarians only get to have thorough knowledge of special
libraries when they eventually find themselves working in a specialized library. This
section of this study material will expose students to the concept of special libraries,
their types, and nature and characteristics amongst other things.

2.1 Definition of Specialized Information System

Specialized information system otherwise known as special library, are libraries
established to serve the information needs of their parent organization or
institution. Special library can also be defined by what they are not, i.e., any library
that does not fall into the academic, school, or public categories (Ferguson and
Mobley, 1984). The building blocks and important components in every special
library are essentially the clientele/users and collections because without the users
in mind, the collections that will be acquired to satisfy their information need cannot
be determined, and hence, there will be no special libraries. In other words, special
libraries are majorly characterized by their users/clientele and collections.

2.2 Nature and Characteristics of Specialized Information

Systems:
Special libraries have so many features but the major ones are as follows:

i. Clientele/Users.
ii. Collections.
iii. Personnel.
iv. Setting.
v. Size.

2.2.1 Clientele/Users:
The bulk of users of special libraries majorly comes from the parent organization or
institution that established the library. The users are mostly professionals in a
particular field and their information needs are tailored towards their career goals.
Examples: lawyers, doctors, nurses, etc. while special libraries are not opened to
the general public like other libraries, professionals that are not employees of the
parent organizations that established a special library can be granted access to the
library.

2.2.2 Collections
The collections of special libraries are usually monotonous in nature and they are
majorly selected and acquired to serve the tailored information needs of some
particular professionals within the parent organization or institution. For example,
while there are so many professionals in courts such as accountants, human
resources managers, transport officers, etc. the collections of the court library are
mainly legal information materials and they are acquired to serve the legal
information needs of the judicial officers as such, information resources for other
professionals within the organization are not usually provided. Special libraries also
provide electronic information resources majorly through subscription to online
databases that serves the information needs of target professionals within an
organization and unlike academic libraries that subscribe to so many online
databases, special libraries subscribe specifically to online databases that are
related to the discipline of the target professionals within the parent organization or
institution that established the library.

2.2.3 Personnel:
While librarians are generally trained and employed to man libraries in general,
some special libraries also require librarians to have additional qualification in the
main discipline of the parent institution or organization housing the library. An
example is the requirement that librarians working in law libraries in Nigeria must
have a first degree in law and a second degree in library science. Librarians working
in special libraries can be called “Special librarians”, “Law librarian”, “Judicial
Librarian”, “Medical librarian” etc.

2.2.4 Setting:
Special libraries are usually housed within the building of their parent organizations
or institutions and they are majorly dependent on the parent
organizations/institutions for survival. The priority of access is usually given to the
target employees for which it was established, other employees within the
organization, and then professionals outside the parent organization.
2.2.5 Size:
Special libraries tend to be small – in terms of space, staff and collections. In most
of the special libraries, the staff strength is very small, often it is reduced to one or
two persons. The librarian has to perform a wide range of tasks including technical,
public service and administrative, clerical and often library security such as custody
of reading materials. In other words, the special librarians need to be subject
specialists on the one hand, and library generalist on the other. Even in larger
special libraries, few special librarians can devote themselves to one task, such as
cataloguing, the way his counterparts in larger libraries might.

2.3 Types of Specialized Information System

Today libraries are found in a wide range of organizations, such as, Government
Departments, Hospitals, Religious institutions, Businesses and industries, Research
organizations, Legal establishments, Factories, Museums, Defense establishments,
etc. These libraries are called special libraries and they are as follows:

i. Law Libraries.
ii. News Libraries.
iii. Medical Libraries.
iv. Military Libraries.
v. Transportation Libraries.
vi. Museum Libraries.
vii. Theological Libraries.
viii. Corporate Libraries.
ix. Prison Libraries.
x. Braille Libraries.

2.3.1 Law Libraries

Law libraries are designed to assist law students, attorneys, judges, and their law
clerks, and other individuals conducting legal research including members of the
general public. Most law libraries are attached to law schools, private law firms, or
government courts for the use of the respective institution's clientele, though some
university libraries also maintain a dedicated legal section. Collections of law
libraries are tailored to the specific legal interests of the institution they are
affiliated and may not have extensive collection beyond that scope.
2.3.2 News Libraries
News libraries are found in offices of newspapers, magazines and media. They
basically contain archives of newspapers, magazines and TV programs brought out
by the media house. The purpose is to serve reference material for the news people
and editorial staff. They hold standard reference books besides the archives of
newspapers, magazines and TV programs brought out by the house.

2.3.3 Medical Libraries

Medical libraries, also known as hospital libraries or health libraries, are designed to
support the needs of physicians, health professionals, medical researchers, medical
students, patients, and consumers interested in the medical field. Most medical
libraries are intended to assist active medical professionals, researchers, and the
public interested in researching the medical field and are attached to hospitals,
medical research facilities, medical schools, and similar institutions.

2.3.4 Military Libraries

Military libraries are designed to support the needs of members of a nation's armed
forces and other personnel attached to the unit or base that the library is a part of.
Often military libraries provide collections and services for families of personnel
assigned to the base and also may maintain information on the history of the base,
units and notable personnel. Primary responsibilities of the military libraries are
assisting military personnel with access to resources for professional development,
personal education, and leisure. Other military libraries are tasked with directly
supporting military operations by providing pertinent resources or organizing and
disseminating information directly related to military units or organization’s
activities.

2.3.5 Transportation Libraries

Transportation libraries are found at government departments, as well as at
universities, and research institutes. They have users which include engineers, city
planners, contractors, academic researchers, and the general public. They provide
resources related to policy, regulations, operations, and other aspects of
transportation.
2.3.6 Museum Libraries
Museum libraries are found in museums. Museum libraries, unlike traditional
libraries, are more private and hidden from the public eye due to their main purpose
as a research library for museum staff and professional researchers. Museum
libraries are usually focused on one subject or field of study, rather than covering all
subject areas.

2.3.7 Theological Libraries

Theological libraries are found in churches, temples, seminaries, universities,
colleges. They assist students, faculty, staff and researchers to advance their
knowledge of religion and theology and to better understand its impact on the
world. However, most of them are available for use not only for the students, faculty
and staff of an institution but also are open for use by researchers and the public in
general, though permission from the concerned authorities will have to be obtained.

2.3.8 Corporate Libraries

A corporate library offers its services to all members of the corporate office of a
company. In many places, they are called by other names as Documentation
Centers, Information Centers, Technical Information Centers or Resource Centers,
and nowadays as Knowledge Resource Centers. Corporate libraries of Central Bank
of Nigeria and Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation are examples of corporate
libraries. Corporate libraries organize and disseminate information throughout the
organization for their own benefit. They often support areas relating to finance,
administration, marketing and technical specialization. Information services
provided by corporate libraries save employees time, and can aid in competitive
intelligence work.

2.3.9 Prison Libraries

Prison libraries are found in prisons providing reading materials to jail inmates with
the purpose of facilitating education, recreation and rehabilitation of inmates. The
library organizes activities to develop reading habit among the prisoners.

2.3.10 Braille Libraries

Braille Libraries contain books in braille and audio materials meant for the people
who are unable to use regular printed material because of visual impairment. Braille
Library consists of Braille books and Talking Books which can be used by visually
impaired people.
2.4 Functions of a Special Library:
Special librarian’s functions can be categorized into three broad areas, namely,

i. Acquiring materials for the library.

ii. Organizing materials in the library.
iii. Disseminating information and materials in the library.

2.4.1 Acquiring materials for the library:

Firstly, the Librarian must build up a balanced collection of material comprehensive
in the main interest the organization he/she serves and he should do a careful
selection of reference works and textbooks to cover marginal, but important,
interests. A significant proportion, perhaps as much as a fifth, will be in languages
other than English which would create a demand for a translation service. Wide
coverage in the main subjects will be achieved through secondary publications.

2.4.2 Organizing materials in the library:

Secondly, he must collect the relevant report material from his own and other
organizations with related interests. The cost of production of these reports (in
terms of expensive research efforts) is extremely high and it should justify their
being indexed in the special library so that the information they contain may be
fully exploited. The depth to which they are indexed will depend on the intrinsic
importance of the information they carry and also on the rapidity of access
required.

2.4.3 Disseminating information and materials in the library:

The time spent by user in the information search process is of direct concern to the
librarian in special libraries. Since both librarian and the user are in the payrolls of
the organization, no librarian would like to see the user wasting their time in the
library wading through the maze of information. Therefore, the spirit of the 4th Law
of Library Science, i.e. ‘Save the time of the user’ is absolutely vital in special
libraries. There must be a realization that users and the library staff work together
in the information search work. In the interest of saving total time and achieving an
overall minimum cost to the organization, the special librarian will take over from
the user a number of tasks which would be his in a more conventional library. Users
will, for example, be kept informed of new developments in their own fields of
interest. All materials coming to the library, including secondary publications, will be
scanned for information of potential value to the individual users whose ‘profiles’ of
interests will be known to the library staff. As a part of this activity, they will receive
a current awareness, or alerting service in the form of a bulletin of news, abstracts
and addition to the library; or the information may be presented in the form of a
digest or summary. It is more efficient for the library staff to do this because they
are trained to know sources of information, and to handle them efficiently. They
develop skills in the process by doing it constantly. One result is that library users
are freed to spend more time on their own work. Experience has shown that it is
more profitable to the parent organization if from two third to three fourth of
information search is taken over by the library. By doing so it is possible to save
from half to two third of the total cost to the organization of its literature searching
(Ashworth, p 11-12).
3.0 Introduction
This chapter introduces students to Community Analysis for specialized information
systems and services. Community can be defined as a group of people living in the
same place or having a particular characteristic in common. Library users can
therefore be seen as a community since they have a characteristic in common
which is enjoying the services provided by the library. Community analysis in
specialized information system is not as tedious and time consuming as in other
information systems considering the fact that the users, we are looking at are not
heterogenous unlike the user groups for other information systems hence, the ease
and convenience experienced with specialized information systems. It is pertinent
to note that community analysis usually comes at the onset of establishing a library
and it can also be used in evaluating an existing library.

3.1 Community Analysis and Needs Assessment

Community analysis is the process of identifying the characteristics of the user
community (both users and non-users) and the environment in which they live, and
assessing their needs of library and information services while Needs Assessment is
the process of studying the information required and used by the community, and
its availability (for both users and non-users). Community analysis is as basic to
library management as the physician’s diagnosis is to the practice of medicine
(Evans, 1976).

The purpose of community analysis and needs assessment is for librarians to gather
wide variety of information about their immediate community in order to evaluate
current services and plan for the future. Specifically, the purpose are as follows:

i. To learn what the community (both users and non-users) think about the
library and its services.
ii. To identify the gaps that may exist between the current services and the
needs of the community.
iii. To bring stakeholders together to discuss the gaps and proffer solutions.
iv. To provide information to effectively plan services, in the long and short
term, that will meet the needs of the community.
To serve the community efficiently, Sting (1919) posited that the librarian must
know the community physically, mentally, and morally. He/she must know the kind
of people they are dealing with and the things in which they are interested in. Most
importantly, librarians should be able identify community stakeholders and ensure
their involvement. The stakeholders include library users, library personnel, heads
of departments, principal of the parent institutions, community/political leaders,
funders, etc. To achieve this, the following strategies and methodologies must be
employed. They are:

i. Information mapping.
ii. Environmental scanning.
iii. Information need.
iv. Information behavior.

3.1.1 Information Mapping

Information mapping is a research-based methodology used to gather, analyze,
organize, and present information based on users need and the purpose of the
information.

Information Mapping in Community Analysis and Needs Assessment:

Community Analysis Needs Assessment
Data and information to be gathered Data and information to be gathered
about the community about users/non-users.
Types of data to be collected: Types of data to be collected:
 Primary – from individuals,  Primary – from individuals,
community groups, or leaders; community groups, or leaders;
 Secondary – previously collected  Secondary – needs assessment
and recorded data. and dimensions of information
seeking process of specific user
groups.
Variables Variables
 Demographic and socioeconomic  Cultural and behavioral
data. dimensions of the information-
 Characteristics of the community seeking process.
environment within the library’s  Information needs.
catchment area.
  Information environment of  Information environment of
community. users.
Method of data collection: Method of data collection:
 Questionnaire.  Questionnaire.
 Interviews.  Interviews.
 Observation.  Observation.
 Documentary sources.  Documentary sources.

3.1.2 Environmental Scanning

Environmental scanning can be defined as “the study and interpretation of the
political, economic, social, and technological events and trends which influence
libraries and the services they provide. The factors which need to be considered for
environmental scanning are events, trends, issues, expectations of different user
groups. Issues are often forerunners of trend breaks. A trend break could be a value
shift in society, a technological innovation that might be permanent or a paradigm
change. When scanning the environment, libraries need to look at their influence.
The scanning process makes the library aware of its environment thereby creating
an avenue to adapt and learn from the environment.

Environmental scanning is useful for strategic management as it helps libraries to

create, develop, and refine their aims and objectives for effective and efficient
service delivery. The common formal environmental scanning process has five steps
and all the steps are important because they develop each other in some form.
They are as follows:

i. The first step in the environmental scanning process requires the

identification of the needs and the issues that warranted the library to decide
that an environmental scanning is required. Before starting the process, it is
important to take factors such as the purpose of the scanning, who will be
participation in the processes and the amount of time and resources that will
be allocated for the duration of the scanning process, into consideration.
ii. The second step of the scanning process is gathering information. All the
needs of the library are translated into required pieces of information that will
be useful in the process.
iii. The third steps involve analyzing all the information gathered by the library.
iv. The fourth step of the environmental scanning process is all about
communication of the results obtained in step three. The appropriate decision
makers analyze the translated information of the potential effects on the
library. All the information is presented in a simple and concise format.
v. With all the information obtained from steps three and four, step five is all
about making informed decisions.

3.1.3 Information Need

According to Nicholas (1996), Information needs arise when a person recognizes a
gap in his/her state of knowledge and wishes to resolve that anomaly. It is the
information that individuals ought to have to do their job effectively, solve a
problem satisfactorily or pursue a hobby or interest happily. Information need is
usually an unstructured statement that describes a type of information required by
an individual in order to function effectively.

Information need is a generic term that needs to be further broken down into
information requirements, that is information demands and information wants
(desires). Some individuals can articulate the information need while others can
desire information but cannot articulate it. Some authors have defined information
demand as information that an individual can demand for either in a written form or
verbal form which can be sought from a library or any specific information system.
On the other hand, information want is a desire for information to satisfy an
uncertainty, it could be likened to a situation in which an individual needs
information for unexpressed needs.

Whether information demand or information wants, Taylor (1968) has provided

information need continuum as follows:

An actual but unexpressed need (the visceral need) → Conscious within-brain

description of the need (the conscious need) → Formal statement of the need in
question form (the formalized need) → The question as presented to the information
system (the compromised need). It is pertinent to note that it is the information
need of an individual that gives rise to information behavior.

3.1.4 Information Behavior

Information behavior is the term used to describe the various behaviors individuals
exhibit in their quest to satisfy their information need. It describes the many ways in
which human beings interact with information, in particular, the way in which
people go about seeking and utilizing information. It covers all instances where
people interact with their environment in any such way that leaves an impression
on them. The changes may be emotional, reflecting complex interaction when
information combines with pre-existing knowledge to make new understanding
(Bates, 2002).

Wilson (1999) pointed out that information search behavior is a subset of

information seeking behavior and that information seeking behavior is in turn only a
subset of all possible information behavior. The individual experiences an
information need, goes out to seek information, finds it, uses it and thereby solves
the need. The Wilson’s (1981) model of information behavior gives a clear picture of
the various aspects of information behavior.