The Technical Services Department
This is the maintenance arm of the Library division. The department embraces four units namely:
- 1. Acquisition Unit.
- 2. Cataloguing Unit.
- 3. Classification Unit.
- 4. Bindery Unit.
Their activities of these units are grouped into three broad areas: collection development (acquisition), cataloguing, and processing. They are the infrastructures that ensure the user’s experience of the institution’s library services is hassle-free.
Collection Development
- Identification: one of the crucial duties of the technical services is locating potentially worthwhile items to add to the collection which they already have. This is to ensure that there is a wealthy pool of resources for the students to draw from.
- Selection: It is not just enough to identify materials or items with potential for student’s consumption; it is equally important that these items are screened and then a decision of what to be added or not would also be made by the technical services.
- Acquisitions are also a part of the department’s duty. They secure items for the collection, including the purchase of books, databases, e-books, and multimedia materials for the library’s collection. These duties are properly handled by the Acquisition Unit of the department.
Cataloguing
- Cataloguing tasks include creating and adapting records for library materials and licensed content, allowing users to search and discover these resources in the library catalogue. These records may include descriptive elements such as authors, titles, and subjects, to assist users in identifying relevant resources to meet their needs. This is handled by the cataloguing unit.Classification is a role that should not be side-lined. It includes indexing and arranging the items acquired in a manner that will aid the end-user in locating materials in the collection. Materials are often organized by established classification systems. The Classification Unit makes sure this duty is properly manned.
Processing
- Preparation: labelling, binding, repairing, conservation, and otherwise making items ready for (and maintained during) storage in a manner that allows for easy retrieval and maintenance of what is in a collection
- Preservation: maintaining and repairing of both print and electronic materials. The former includes repairing damaged books, binding journals into hardcover volumes, and reformatting print materials to digital. The latter includes digital curation, where archivists work to preserve electronic materials from data deterioration, and periodically migrate data from older formats to newer one. These duties are handled by the bindery unit.
- All in all, these units work hard to see that new materials for the library are well organized for easy access by the library users.