The Usability of Katalog Induk Kebangsaan (Kik): Investigating the Perception of the Participating Libraries
Zuraidah Abd Manaf, Ahmad Fuzi Md Ajis · 2011
A national union catalog is recognized as bibliographic information tracking device that could locate information around the countries. It is the catalogue of combined holdings of several libraries. Union catalogue have been so much important to libraries as reference and resource sharing tools. This situation makes more libraries involves in producing their own union catalog while some union catalog project has been brought to national level. The awareness of resource sharing demands does not exclude Malaysia from having their union catalogue. Thus, a project called Katalog Induk Kebangsaan (KIK) was organized and initiated by the National Library of Malaysia. The KIK project aims to manage and develop repository of bibliographic and non bibliographic information through collaborative network among libraries in Malaysia. In the year 2006, KIK has been made available in Web format and it was put under the responsibility of Perpustakaan Digital Nasional (PERDANA) Department in National Library of Malaysia. The main mission of the project is to manage and develop repository of bibliographic and non bibliographic information through collaborative network among libraries in Malaysia. This paper provides insight on the libraries perceptions on the usability of Katalog Induk Kebangsaan (KIK). A recent study has been conducted to investigate the perception of the libraries towards the usability of the Malaysia's National Union Catalog, Katalog Induk Kebangsaan. The objectives of the study are to investigate the perceptions of the participating libraries‖ towards the accessibility of KIK, to identify potential improvement for KIK functionalities as perceived by the libraries and to investigate the authoritativeness of KIK records. The study adopted survey method whereby questionnaires have been distributed to libraries involved with the development the KIK in the first phase. The finding of the study indicates that the perceptions of the libraries towards the accessibility, functionality and authoritativeness of the KIK are motivated to Exceed Minimal Acceptable Level. However the results did not illustrate significant tendency of the perceptions towards Exceed Minimal Acceptable Level. The usability of the KIK perceived by libraries inclined to the same level as other variables. Furthermore, the relationship of each variable was also tested and illustrates positive relationships. The study was limited to the issues on the usability of KIK which highlight the accessibility, functionality of KIK and authoritativeness of KIK records. Findings from this study could be used to improve the service and facilities provided by KIK in order to satisfy the users' information needs and become the opening gateway for other researcher to engage in similar research. This study provides highlights on real issues relating to national union catalog as well as few improvements that could be done to improve the usability of the KIK.