Open Sources Software Tools for Managing 21^st Century Libraries

Open Source Software offers straightforward solutions to many libraries, which haveso for tied up with the commercial softwares. Software under the commercial platforms comes with a financial burden, security issue and locked source codes. Instead of customising the application to make it user-friendly, libraries alter their services/deliveries according to the software's limitations. To overcome these inherent issues of the commercial software, many libraries, technology developer, vendors emerged with Open Source Software Solutions for library services and activities. Open Source Software is available at free of cost, and most of them are allowing the users to customise and edit source codes as per their requirements. This term paper is intended to introduce available open-source software and their implementations in libraries. Information and communications technology have played a significant role in the development of the libraries. Since a decade, libraries have been entirely depending on computer applications to provide new services to their users. Various computer programs/applications are available in the market for libraries which substantially providing the solution of library services like library automation, design and management of library websites, creating digital libraries, learning management solutions, digital archives etc.