Logistics – Management Support for Libraries and Library Systems

Information systems in general have an important role in the development of logistics and management. Without the support of modern information systems it would not be possible to maintain and develop manufacturing, product distribution, supply channels, or distribution of information as a special kind of ‘commodity’. Apart from the economic, value -driven and technical (transfer, storage, and packaging) aspect of logistics, equally important is the key ‘information’ component of logistics, i.e. establishing the criteria for decision making and information acquisition, its processing and transfer. The logistics compon ent has been gaining in importance in the library as a special organisational unit of a particular library and information system. The emergence, growth and multiplication of countless information systems, together with the uncontrollable proliferation of the number and types of information, have created a need to design special logistically-supported information systems in libraries, and in librarianship. The possibilities provided by databases (as screened and verified information sources) stimulate the constant development of certain logistic concepts related to acquisition, processing, browsing and transfer of information, as well as efficient processing and use of research results.