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Library Software from UNESCO That Is Enabling Small to Large Institutions to Enter the Electronic Age
This article reviews CDS/IS, Library automation software from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), now available in a Windows version called Winisis. Winisis is distributed free or at cost to mostly developing countries, but the program also finds widespread use in prosperous regions of the world, especially in Western Europe. Distribution, support, software and hardware costs, and library management are compared to commercial software. The author evaluates features allowing customization of Winisis for different work environments, end users, and languages. Winisis is a cost-effective solution for small to large institutions, especially where the computer hardware infrastructure cannot meet commercial software specifications. There are supplemental programs adding modules for Web publishing, Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC), and management tools to the basic program. The program also may serve as a document retrieval system, using new linking functions. The current release of Winisis is of best benefit to those upgrading from the DOS version. New users are advised to wait for an updated version because of the lack of a complete online help system, a detailed reference manual, and unimplemented features.
I discovered CDS/ISIS from UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in the course of developing my Bibliographic Software page.1 Although I originally included the product along with Personal Bibliography Software (PBS), CDS/ISIS is more properly Library Automation Software (LAS), and with enhancements can become a Library Management System (LMS). It remains on my Bibliographic Software page because it is on the cusp of what a small library, project, or institution might use to catalogue, maintain, and make available its documents online or onsite. PBS is potentially of use to small libraries or corporate/academic projects. If the software will be used for primarily internal access purposes, and production of documents from research, PBS is a good choice. However, when an institution has a public user base, then an LAS is probably the better choice, since this generally offers an OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue) mode, and these systems tend to use the international standard cataloguing formats.
A Software of Choice (everywhere but here)
CDS/ISIS has become the developing world's library software of choice, but...