Our school library operates a manual card system. This system is highly inefficient and time consuming. The only time that students can visit this library is during the school breaks and before school. Therefore during this time there is a lot of confusion and a long queue of students accumulates.
Librarians are often unable to cope with all this work and so the library administrators have decided to replace the existing system with a computerized one.
The Manual System.
The manual system has been in use since the library first opened. The library has several books of every type and value. Every book has a card attached to it with the book details. The details on the card show the book reference number, title, its author, year of publication and shelf number. Similarly every student who borrows books from the library has 3 user cards, each of which shows the student's id, student's name and surname, address, id, telephone number and card expiry date. .
To borrow books the student chooses a maximum of three books and takes them to the librarian. The librarian takes the book card from each book, and stores them with the user's cards. These are filed according to the date of return order. The librarian then rubber stamps the date of return on a slip of paper attached to the book and when the books are returned the librarian checks the date of return and locates the cards. He gives the user cards back to the student and puts the book card back into the book. The librarian goes through all the cards to find out which books are overdue and issues a reminder. When new books arrive at the library the librarian prepares a card with the book details for each book. When a new student comes to borrow books for the first time he has to fill in a registration form and the librarian prepares 3 new user cards for the student.
Drawbacks of the Manual System.
Many students are not making use of the school library because of the long queues and confusion.