Library as a system

 Library can infact be identified as a complex system. Seven basic subsystems that make up the library system, as identified by Hays and Becker, are acquisitions, serials control, circulation control, cataloguing, interlibrary loans, reference and administration and planning. Chapman and others list all these except inter-library loans, which understandably can form part of either circulation control or reference subsystem. These can be restated as acquisitions, serials control, information storage and retrieval, user services and administration and planning. Here, then, our library and information system has been reduced to its component parts which together serve the common purpose of providing library and information service. This common purpose binds all these component parts into an integrated whole. They are interrelated functionally and, therefore, are interdependent. For example, a change in the functioning of the acquisitions subsystem can affect the effectiveness of the user services subsystem. Similarly, a change in the functionality of information storage and retrieval subsystem can also effect the effectiveness of user services subsystem and that of the system as a whole. Thus, these subsystems are not only interrelated because of the common purpose they serve, they are also interdependent. Because of this interdependence among them, a change in any one component may affect the functioning of the whole system. The library is, thus, a system.

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