Dr. Saeed bin Qassem Al-Khalidi

Saudi universities, represented by the deanships of library affairs, have always sought over the past years to develop information services in central and branch libraries by adopting and applying the latest library and information technologies and modern standards in the field of library and information management, to enable researchers and students to benefit from library services and also to facilitate access to those services and information vessels in easy ways available around the clock without interruption.

Given the multiplicity of types of information services available in academic libraries, including databases, catalogs, books, and electronic journals, those in charge of deanships of library affairs in those universities have recognized the importance of finding appropriate solutions through which the beneficiary can access various available information sources in the easiest and closest ways, including access through a unified information portal that enables the beneficiary to group all sources and electronic services in the library under a unified umbrella that can be accessed through the Internet from inside and outside the library.

In addition, those in charge of deanships of library affairs in Saudi universities believe that building a unified work environment and a unified entry point for all information sources in their libraries and integrating them with information sources on the library's internal network such as the electronic library management system "Horizon", electronic books, etc., will raise the value of information and those sources and contribute to enhancing unified access to all sources of knowledge for all university employees, including faculty members, researchers, and students.

From this standpoint, the Arabian Advanced Systems Company has sought, with specialists in some deanships of library affairs in universities, to provide this service known as the Acknowledge Academic Knowledge program for unified search.

Which provides an integrated solution by building a comprehensive electronic library that can link all available electronic information sources and enable all university employees to access the information they need and interact with the beneficiary.

Acknowledge Academic Knowledge Service

It is a new service provided by Arabian Advanced Systems to academic institutions, culminating in continuous investments and joint work with clients to reach an advanced level of benefit and real investment for the huge amount of electronic information sources provided by academic libraries to the education sector and the research community.

This service is built on the basis of the actual information needs of the community of beneficiaries, as it is configured according to the information requirements of the academic staff with a focus on sub-specialties and the corresponding various information sources available.

This service is provided through a unified portal with all its content customization services, current awareness, and comprehensive search in databases and electronic journals with distinct capabilities in controlling and managing beneficiary powers without the need to invest in hardware, software, and human energy to provide an integrated service tailored to the need and size of the beneficiary community.

The Acknowledge Academic Knowledge service consists of the following main elements:

• A database containing profile files for all faculty members. The systems collect, prepare, and classify information about faculty members according to their specialties and interests and feed this data into the advanced Profiler system to form a profile file for each member.

• Unified access portal to information sources.

• A unified and integrated information portal that the systems adapt to suit the electronic sources acquired by the university library, allowing the university to customize it in the style that suits its requirements. It also provides library specialists with the possibility of publishing information, news, and advertisements related to information sources and library services in general, and whatever news materials and information for beneficiaries they deem appropriate.

The portal provides a range of interactive services for beneficiaries, allowing the personal customization feature and providing a unified entry point to information sources for all university members without any temporal or spatial barriers.

Current Awareness

An integrated current awareness service that enables any university employee to choose the scientific journal or journals for which they would like to receive a list of contents on their email or private page on the portal, as soon as it is published electronically within the service the university is subscribed to.

Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI)

An advanced service that enables university members to obtain a list of topics that fall within their interests based on their personal profiles from various electronic information sources that the university acquires, so that these lists reach them automatically when published in these sources, which contain live links that enable the beneficiary to access the full text directly from their email.

Unified Comprehensive Search in Databases: The unified comprehensive search service is set up according to the databases subscribed to by the university, with the required specializations created to tailor the engine to suit the beneficiaries' specialties and also what each database covers of specialized topics, with linking the engine to the library's general catalog, which can be searched simultaneously with the databases.

Comprehensive Search in Journals

The systems provide for building a cataloged database for the journals subscribed to by the university and linking them to the publishers' sites for the journals, which allows the beneficiary to search through journals via a unified interface and access the full text through this interface. Benefits of comprehensive searching in all databases include:

• Maximum utilization of available information sources.

• Saving time and effort in obtaining information with ease of dealing with one search interface.

• Searching in part or all available sources (local and external).

• Displaying grouped search results from all sources.

• Accessing the record directly from the search results interface without needing re-authentication.

• Ability to eliminate duplicates among search results.

• Ability to sort results in several different ways.

• Displaying results using thematic clustering techniques.

In conclusion, we would like to point out that most universities subscribe to global databases for millions of riyals, and sometimes we find that some of these databases are not utilized by university members due to the multiplicity of access data for them. However, the ideal solution in my view is through the academic knowledge program for unified search, as this program facilitates access to them with only one entry method.

Brochure of the Academic Knowledge Unified Search Program, from Arabian Advanced Systems Company, Riyadh, 2011.

Vice Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Systems at Jazan University.