Library Management System Critical Analysis

Abstract

Library management system is an aspect or branch of information management system that keeps the records of both the library users, books in the library and the activities that is going on in the library, activities like borrowing books and returning books. Information management in general is the collection and management of information from one or more source and distribution of the information to one or more audience.This sometimes involves those who a stake in or right to that information. Management means the organization of and control over the structure, processing, and delivery of information. In short information management entails organizing retrieving acquiring and maintaining information. It is closely related to and overlapping with the practice of data management.

A good library manager must be able to take of the following activities in the library:

• Keep records of books in the library.
• Keep records of the library user.
• Keep track of books borrowed by any library user.
• Keep record of time a library user borrowed and return books.
• Do the following analysis after each day for decision making purpose
• Analysis of book borrowed by per day.
• Analysis of the type of book people requested for per day.
• Analysis of the author people read his/her book most per day.
• All the above analysis is needed due to the following reasons.
• To get the type of books people read most in the library to avoid congestion.
• To get the type of books from a particular author which people read most in the library so as to avoid congestion.

Introduction

Background to the study Information for the modern institution is a resource parallel in importance to land, and other factors of production. It is very vital and a prices less resources. For centuries, man has tried to collate, store, process and retrieve information and most importantly analysis of the data before distribute or communicate it by the available fast test mean. It follows, therefore that man has tried various ways and methods to record analyse and disseminate information in his attempts to proffer solution to low security of data, effective data communication, effective data analysis and lot more.

Information therefore is data that have been processed into meaningful and usable form, and it contains knowledge that reduces uncertainly in particular situation and it is mostly useful in decision making. But unfortunately most people in this country do not have effective means of information management; the departmental library is a typical example of such.

About the old system

Library is a place where books are kept are kept for student lecturers to come and read or borrow to their various home for reading, for the security of these books record of library user are needed to kept likewise record of available books in library are also needed to kept. The most important part of it is that the library attendant must keep record of who borrows and type of book some one borrowed along with the time in order to keep track of the book in library.For the improvement of library or updating of the library book, statistic or read and unread books are needed top kept so as to know which book to get more into the library, also to know which author the students or lecturer like to read their books and lot more. All the above activities are done manually; that is it involves someone writing down the name of the library users and list of books in the library, even to the extents of counting the number a book is read which can be in inaccurate which also exposes the book to risk of missing.The most disgusting thing is searching through the shelf for books to read which is done by manual library catalogue, this alone can discourage student from reading books in library where we have large number of books.

Problem Statement and Motivation

What motivated me to embark on this project is due to the following problem that is faced by the Computer Science Department Library.

• Searching through the library shelf for books to read will be boring and may not be encouraging. Searching through the record book to validate a library user may also be boring for the library keeper.
• Keeping tracks of borrowed books with the library user that borrowed it may not accurate which can lead to loss of books in the library.
• Conducting the analysis of books people read per day, analysis of author people read his/books per day may be difficult and inaccurate which affect the decision making of the library managers.
• Backing up of files or records may be very difficult because it can lead to repetitive task.

Objective of the Research

The main objective of this research is to develop software (library Management Software) for the computer science department library which will be capable of managing the student information (library users) and the books in the library.

The research is aimed at achieving the following objectives:

• To keep record of register student (library users).
• To improve the consistency of the information in the library.
• To improve the way analysis of books are conducted
• To improve the security of information in the library.

Methodology

Information gatheringI gathered all the information above information by conducting an interview for the student (library user) and the library keeper. I chose to use java for developing the interfaces of the software and the database connectivity due to the following reasons:

• Java is platform-independent programming language that can run on any type of operating system.
• Java is network programming language that can access over a network.
• Java is fast in execution. I have chose Microsoft Access Database for the database because of it flexibility and it easy access.