The Problem And Its Background free essay sample

Chapter 1 THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND Introduction The mission of the academic library is to contribute to the goals of the college or university of which it is a part to the wider scholarly community. These goals pertain to teaching, learning, research and public service in some combination. The enduring traditional and widely accepted function of the academic library is to provide bibliographical and physical access to books and the information sources required to support the diverse missions of our various academic and research institution. The primary characteristics of a good library are its identification with the institution. The measure of excellence is the extent to which its resources, services and facilities support the institutions mission and objectives. The library in the tertiary level institution is designed as: (1) a teaching component; (2) a stimulus to independent intellectual development; and (3) as essential resource to well-rounded liberal education. The library shall be regarded as a vital academic resource of the institution and as such its organizational structure. Academic libraries, whether private or public, have been considered as essential part of advanced learning. Its fundamental role is educational. It should not be operated on as a mere storehouse of books attached to a reading room, but as a dynamic instrument of education. It plays a very vital role in the life of a nation. It feeds the intellect of students, faculty, researchers, scholars, and casual readers and also those who enter its place to partake fully its intellectual and cultural fare. In line with goals of the institution the academic library is an important intellectual resource of the academic community, needs of its patrons or readers by providing as adequate, well-selected and well-organized collection supporting its courses and programs offered and adequate facilities. Background of the Study(profile of the company, location, history) Statement of the problem 1. What are the common problems encountered with the existing manual system of the library. 2. What are the possible solutions to the problems encountered with the current system? 3. What is the difference between the manual system and the proposed system? 4. What are the levels of the proposed system in terms of: a. Functionality b. Usability c. Reliability d. Maintainability e. Efficiency f. Portability The students encountered slow processing of transaction in borrowing, every library users who goes inside the library needs to show the library card and sign in to a log book for verification. The users of the library must need to show their library card, log in to the log book, searching of the need book, go to the librarian to confirm his/her library card, inform for the said book to be borrowed and fill up the book card then the borrower might submit his/her library card together with the book card. Besides, it’s not the only work or job of the librarian, so by the manual procedure it may take so much time to finish all the task of the librarian. So meaning, there’s an instance that the librarian cannot control the number of the users. And sometimes, there are students of Saint Rita College telling them that his/her library card was lost, together with the people who want to borrow or return books, some library users that needed to get their overdue slip that causes blockage in the library. In the end of the day the librarian must have an overtime to work, to generate her report and double check all the transactions to be done. Another is the librarian encountered difficulty in monitoring and tracking of records, librarians cannot easily determined the status of the book whether it is available or not. There is no log form stating that the book was already returned. Additional to that, Inventory of books are not being done correctly in manual operation and some of the books have the same accession number resulting to recounting of books manually in the book shelves. Records of Discharged books are not tracked sometimes, librarian still looks for it on the shelves not knowing that it already in the binding section for repair or it is already weep-out. Also is the slow generation of reports. The chief librarian will compile all the reports given to her monthly and will start to generate the whole annual report. Once the monthly reports are not being done and passed on time to the chief librarian, the results of the annual report will not be accurate due to incompleteness. If the monthly reports are late, the generation of the annual report will also be late. Overdue reports are posted in the bulletin board to inform the borrowers including students and faculty members about their liabilities. However, there are some borrowers like students were able to get clearance and honourable dismissal without paying the overdue fine due to slow generation of monthly report. Additional to that, some faculty members that are already resigned were not also able to settle their overdue fine. All of the books which are not replaced will be paid and shouldered by the librarians. Lastly, the Cataloguing System is not dependable. The library user, instead using the cataloguing system, just look and search manually on the books located on the shelves or ask for the assistance of librarian and write it on the call slip, for a reason that there is no cataloguing system. Objectives of the Study General Objective The aim of the study is to create an â€Å"Automated Library System for Saint Rita College with Bar Coding† that will enable a better flow of transactions. The system may be more functional and user-friendly to the users of the library and may provide accurate services. Specific Objectives 1. To create a cataloguing module that will help to have a faster and accurate searching of books in the library. 2. To create an acquisition module that will enable to edit and update the database of system. 3. To have a more accurate and faster generation of reports. 4. To create a bar coded module and printable receipts for faster transactions. 5. To improve the current assessment system and to deal into more efficient way. 6. To create system that will have adequate records of borrowed and returned books. Significance of the Study Accuracy, efficiency and effectiveness are necessary for a modern institution. Automation of the system would improve the workflow of any organization. Occurrences of errors caused by the manual operation would be minimal with the automated system. Aspects such as this are given more attention due to the importance of modernization and organization of files. The developed study’s implementation would benefit the following: Academic Institutions – This will serve as an evidence of continuous development of the whole institution and edge to other institutions. This study will help the institution to achieve its main vision in global competitiveness. Library Administration – It will help in a more systematic and faster transaction and generation assignment to their employee that will lessen their workload because of its features. Students – It will help them to request books, and borrow books conveniently. It will also help them to be informed of whether the books are available or not in a faster manner. Scope and Limitation The study is designed for managing various activities of â€Å"Saint Rita College Library†. Since library has a very large number of books and a large number of members, it is impossible for librarian to manage day to day activities. It covers the problem experienced by librarians and the library user on their system. In this study, the researchers would design an automated library system that would help in the improvement of the flow of transactions in the library. Moreover, through this study, their system would be more efficient and more convenient, more reliable, more accurate for the librarians and its user. This study is limited only with the problems with flow of transaction in the library like registration of students, searching in OPAC, circulation, cataloguing, acquisition, bar coded module and generating of receipts and reports. It is not responsible to provide solutions that deal with physical appearances of the library. The student will access only the borrowing and searching part of system, while the librarian can access only the circulation of the system and the chief librarian and technical librarian who can access the whole system.