Awareness and Adoption of Open Source Software among Library and Information Science Professionals of Engineering Colleges of Karnataka: A Survey

Abstract

Today, Information and Communication Technology has provided us with an ability of flexibility and access to information and resources (Agarwal, Manjari, 2014). It has empowered the Library and Information Science community to adapt to the new open source software (OSS) tools and technologies in their day-to-day activities in their libraries. Development of OSS based on the sharing and collaborative improvement of software source code has a history that is essentially as long as software development itself. Open source initiative was formed in 1998 as an educational, advocacy and stewardship organisation at an important moment in the history of OSS and collaborative development. This study is aimed to study the different OSS of library digitisation in engineering college libraries of Karnataka, to Study the nature and type of open source digital library software used in engineering college libraries of Karnataka and to Study the areas of application of OSS in engineering college libraries of Karnataka. The investigation has conducted a survey among 147 engineering college librarians in the state of Karnataka on the above matters. The results are discussed under the categories such as status of library automation and digitisation, use of automation and digital library software, management of IT and network requirement of library, own digital library/institutional repository software, involvement in installation of OSS, involvement in installation of OSS, potential areas of adopting OSS in library and duration of OSS implementation in library.