1.
Introduction
1.1. Background of the project
Now a day the technology advancement is progressing from time to time. Ethiopian higher
education is trying to give ICT supported education for the students to attain the five years
growth and transformation plan, especially in engineering and technology. It is obvious that in all
Ethiopian higher institutions especially in the newly opened ones Information Communication
Technology is not introduced as much as it is expected to be. One of such a new University is
Dire Dawa University which was established and started its academic activities in the 2006/07
academic year. Library information service is one of a service which was provided by a Dire
Dawa university. There are three libraries in Dire Dawa University. Almost all activities in three
libraries are performed manually, which leads to wastage of time, labor, and recourses. That is
the great challenge especially for library employees and users of the library. Some of the
problems being faced in the existing manual system are: difficult to search, add, update and
retrieve the information, error prone, difficult to compile and generate a report, tracing a book is
difficult, information about issue/return of the books is not properly maintained, needs more
human labor, Voluminous paper and not secure.
Due to the aforementioned problems of manual based approach we are motivated to do a project
that will alleviate the existing problems in Library and Information service management of Dire
Dawa University. Therefore, we proposed the automated Library Management system that will
automate the existing manual system. The proposed automated system provides the following
advantages over the manual systems:
It provides better and efficient service to members.
Less labor (reduce the workload of employee)
Faster retrieval of information about the desired book (All details will be available on a
click).
Provide facility for proper monitoring
No voluminous paper and cards
Better security.
Improved accessibility of information
Improved decision support by generating deferent kind of reports
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Centralized information control
1.2. Statement of the Problem (problem definition)
Currently there are three separate libraries in Dire Dawa University giving manual based services
to the university community. All the transactions of books are carried out manually taking more
time for a transaction like borrowing or returning a book and also for searching books and
members information. The other major difficulty is on generating various reports like identifying
a list of books borrowed and available books in the library which takes more time while
verifying all the records. Moreover, the following are some of the most critical problems facing
the existing manual based system.
No centralized database interconnecting the existing three libraries for a coordinated
service providing.
Lack of online access to books catalogue.
Manually updating the book catalogue for new arrivals is costly in terms of time and
sometimes creates disordered arrangements of catalogue cards which make the searching
process difficult and inefficient.
Report generation is carried out manually taking unreasonably more time and ending with
inefficient reports.
Overcrowding of book catalogue when more users arrive at the same time creating
inefficient library services.
Difficulty in searching for books and borrowers information.
Manual record keeping approach resulting in lack of security, redundancy, wastage of
time, cost and labor.
To alleviate the problems faced by the existing manual based system, we have proposed a
promising automated online library management system. Our proposed system provides a
reliable integrated library service including online access to books catalogue enabling users to
check the availability of the book they need with its content and the specific library among the
three libraries that the book is found, online borrower registration and borrow ordering, mobile
based notification system for announcement on new arrivals, auto fee calculation for late book
returning borrowers and fast generation of different kinds of reports. The system also employs
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bar code recognition system allowing instant access to books as well as book borrower’s
information.
1.3. Objectives of the study
1.3.1. General Objective
The objective of this project is to develop a system that can automate the existing manual
system.
1.3.2. Specific Objectives
Requirement elicitation and analysis on DDU libraries.
Design and develop a centralized database to keep track of books as well as library user’s
record.
Developing a secured online system by creating different levels of access privileges to
administrator, librarian and users.
Employing bar code recognition system to access books as well as borrowers
information.
Developing mobile based notification system for announcement on new arrivals
Developing auto fee calculation system for late book returning borrowers.
Creating a reliable search facility for the users.
Creating user friendly interfaces.
1.4. Scope and significance of the study
The main aim of the project is to keep the information of Books such as, ISBN, Title of the book,
Name of the Book, Author of the book, and book contents. It also keeps information of the
transaction such as issue and return of the books, fine information on the members. The project
also generates various reports such as report of books which are not returned, report of fine on
the members, when they will return the book, report on the frequently accessed books. A new
system that we are going to develop is broad and wide in volume. So, in this project we are
concerned with the information maintained in the library such as:
Automatic book ISBN recognition and members Identification using Barcode reader
tools,
register old and new books, and new membership,
update information about books and membership,
Issue book for users,
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search and view users’ and book information,
notify the members when he/she will not return a book on time by sending
notification about a fine and when to return using their email address,
search books using ISBN, book title, author, and publication year,
display a location of a book in the catalogue,
It generates different kinds of report which lets a managing unit to take a decision;
like which books to buy, based on their frequent access,
Takes a feedback from the users,
Let the managing unit to enable, disable, create and delete users account.
1.5. Methodology of the Project
1.5.1. Data collection Methodology
In order to gather a requirement from different stakeholders we will employ different data
gathering techniques. Those are:
i. Questioner: We will conduct questioners for the library management to study the
existing system and develop the new system.
ii. Interview: We will gather data/information by interviewing the library officers about
the existing library management system and some of users. The questions we have
prepared were open ended questions because we can get detailed information about the
current system.
iii. Observation: This enables us to collect data by observing the current activities of the
library, which helps us to list out the problems in the existing system.
iv. Document Analysis: different documents relevant for the study will be reviewed.
1.6. Development tools
We use the following System Development Environments for documentation’s and
implementations of the new proposed system. These are:
Dreamweaver
Microsoft word 2013 for documentation part
Microsoft Visio 2007 for designing part
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Mysql Database
WAMP web server
1.7. Limitations and risk of the proposed system
Introduction of new personnel (computer literate, if not training is needed).
The cost and risk during conversion from the old to the new system
Complex backup and recovery services is needed
High impact on the system when failure occur
1.8. Feasibility study
The objective of this feasibility study is to examine our proposed system whether it is feasible or
not.
Operational Feasibility
Our system is operationally feasible, because the organization can use the system by simply
installing to perform its regular task without any ambiguity and also it can solve the problems
that are faced in regular DDULIS.
Technical Feasibility
Technical Feasibility is the measure of practicality of the specific technical solution and the
availability of technical resources. We can strongly says that it is technically feasible, since there
will not be much difficulty in getting required resources for the development and maintaining the
system as well. All the resources needed for the development of the software as well as the
maintenance of the same is available in the organization here we are utilizing the resources
which are available
Economic Feasibility
Our System is economically feasible i.e. economically our project system doesn’t cost much
more and also the materials to implement the system doesn’t cost great amount of money. For
the project we are working on, we have the costs estimation:
Development of this application is highly economically feasible. The organization needed
not spend much m one for the development of t he system already available. The only thing is
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to be done is making an environment for the development with an effective supervision. I f
we are doing so , we can attain the maximum usability of the corresponding resources .Even
after the development , the organization will not be in a condition to invest more in t he
organization .Therefore , the system is economically feasible.
1.9. Project Plan
1.9.1. Project time schedule
The total time needed to develop this project is approximately 12 months. The dedicated project
duration is depicted in figure 1.
Figure 1: Time schedule
1.9.2. Budget Breakdown
From the start to the end of any project or research resources play a great role. To get the
resources there is a need of cost. In general speaking the system needs the following cost to
accomplish it fully from the very beginning to the deployment of the system.
Equipment and Facilities
Item Quantity Unit Price Total Price (birr)
Barcode reader 6 1500 9,000
EVDO 3 2500 7,500
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External Hard Disk 1 2300 2,300
Flash Disks (8 GB) 3 250 750
Sub Total 19,550
Consumables:
Item Quantity Unit Price Total Price (birr)
CDMA card 100 100 10,000
Mobile card 30 100 3,000
Paper 6 150 900
Writing , Printing and copy - - 1000
14,900
Sub Total
Manpower costs:
Item No. of persons Payment per day Total Price (in
participating birr) for 60 days
Data Collection 15 72 64,800
64,800
Sub Total
Training Costs:
Item No. of Trainers Payment per Person Total Price (birr)
Overall Training cost 3 5,000 15,000
15,000
Sub Total
Implementation and testing costs:
Item Person Participating Payment per person Total Price (birr)
Implementation 3 15,000 45,000
Testing 3 10,000 30,000
75,000
Sub Total
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Total Costs
Item Cost
Equipment and Facilities 19550
Manpower 64,800
Trainings 15,000
Implementation and testing 75,000
Consumables 14,900
Contingency (10%) 1892.50
191,142.50
Gross Total
