automated information system for marikina city library

Automated Information System for Marikina City Library

Angeles/ Marqueses/ Santos

CHAPTER I

AGENCY PROFILE

The Marikina City Library started as a Municipal Library. It was organized on

August 11, 1956 under the headship of the so called “Education Mayor” Mayor Gil

Estanislao Fernando (Father of Chairman Bayani F. Fernando) joint auspices of the

Municipal Government of Marikina and the Bureau of Public Libraries, now the National

Library, under the direct supervision of the Provincial Librarian.

From 1956 to 1961, the Library occupied the small space at the Municipal

Session Hall. The Municipal Government provided the salary of the librarian, office

supplies and equipment. An amount of P200 was given for its initial subscription. The

Municipal Library started with 300 volumes of books allocated by the Bureau of Public

Libraries and with the basic furniture such as book shelves, small table and 4 chairs

donated by the civic minded citizens of Marikina.

Its growth was improved through the generous support of the Municipal

Government of Marikina which appropriated its funds. With the deep concern for the

improvement of the said institution, the Municipal Government passed Resolution No.

18 on March 10 1962, reserving a lot for the Library building at Lot no. 100-B at Sta.

Elena. Moreover, the Municipal Council of Marikina asked for a pork barrel fund from

the National Government, approved under Republic Act Nos. 2093 (P5,000) and 3101

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(P5,000) for a Library building with a counterpart fund of P10,000 to be provided for by

the Municipal Government.

The Library was transferred to a new building on August 16, 1962. The

inauguration, November 25, 1962, coincided with the celebration of the National Book

Week. Because of the accessibility of the new location, the number of library users

greatly increased as well as the collection of the informative materials found in the

Library. Aware of the invaluable service that the Library was giving to the community,

the Municipal Library in cooperation with the Barrio Council and through the help of the

Provincial Librarian and Bureau of Public Libraries established Barrio Libraries namely

J. Dela Peña, Barangka, Concepcion, Parang and Nangka to foster social development

of the people in the barrios.

As years went by, the big population increase of Marikina presented a need for a

bigger library. Through the cooperation and assistance of the Philippine National Bank

(PNB), Marikina Branch, and the support of the Marikina Municipal Government, a

bigger Library building was constructed on the same site on November 28, 1988. It was

finished on August 1989 and the Library was housed on the second floor of the building.

Under the Leadership of Mayor MARIA LOURDES C. FERNANDO a bigger and

conducive for learning Library was planned. The new site (up to the present 2007) is on

the West Grand Stand, Marikina Sports Park Shoe Avenue, Marikina City. The transfer

was made March 19, 2005 and the “New Library” was eventually inaugurated on May

20, 2005.

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At present, the Library occupies a total of 700.62 sqm. It consists of the following

sections: The Children’s Section, Special Collection Section (NSO publications, Shoe

Industry, Local History, and National Center for Disabled Person Publication), Periodical

Section, Teen’s Section, Recreational Section, Law Section, Filipiniana Section,

Reference Section, General Collection Section, and the Computer Section. It also has

an Audio-visual Room (173.22 sqm.) which can accommodate as many as 80 persons

per seating.

The goals of the company are as follows:

To serve as an information and knowledge center of the community.

To provide sufficient and substantial updated information for the informal

education of the people.

To augment the research and information needs of students, teachers and other

professionals in the locality.

To provide opportunity for self-improvement.

To gather, organize and preserve the local historical documents.

To bring the library closer to the community.

Maintain an ideal atmosphere conducive to serious learning and easy

assimilation of ideas.

Be an ideal setting for learning activities being the seat of Knowledge, Progress

and Success.

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VISION

We aspire to become a premier public library imbued with sound values

and a strong commitment to lifelong learning and information literacy.

MISSION

Continually develop, sustain, preserve, and make available and accessible

to the public the vast resources of the Marikina City Library.

OBJECTIVES

1. To serve as a repository of information, knowledge, and library services in the

community.

2. To provide sufficient, substantial, and relevant information to the public as a

way of supplementing their knowledge, literacy, and self-development.

3. To meet the research and information needs of students, teachers,

researchers, and the like.

4. To offer outreach and literacy assistance to individuals and groups in need of

services such as job and educational information and educational programs.

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CHAPTER II

EXISTING SYSTEM

History of the Existing System

From the establishment of the City Library, An Open-Shelf System is used by the

City Library in organizing the books by using a Dewey decimal classification system.

The Dewey decimal system serves to be the arrangement of the books in the library. It

is very useful for finding or searching of books. The library serves all residents of the

community and neighboring cities and towns.

The Marikina City Library’s service will not be denied or abridged because of

religious, racial, social, economic, or political status or because of emotional, mental or

physical condition, age or sexual orientation. Meanwhile, with regards to the day to day

transactions in the Marikina City Library, has been recording the books that they have in

a manual system.

To be exact it, the current system in the library is a paper based system. This

manual system includes the recording of the issuance of books to the borrower on a

record sheet.

How the existing system operates:

The students enter the library for either reading a book or borrowing a book for

some period of time, First the students must register enter information about himself, it

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includes the name, address and the educational status, then he search for the book first

using card catalog and filling up a call slip.

According to the departments in the library, he will send the call slip to the

librarian to borrow the book. Then the librarian takes the call slip to find the book, after

searching and getting the book it will take the information about the and the write it in a

documents that is exists for that purpose, the librarian write the name of the book.

There are a different operations that is not related to the students such as the

process of stocktaking that is held every end of the year, in which the librarian must

prepare a statistics about the books in the library to ensure that no books missed or

wear out, if so a new books is bought according to the missed books or the orders of the

stuff members and students (the most required books).

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System Run Chart

Diagram 2. System Run Chart of the Existing System

In this diagram, the Librarian encodes the details of the book to be borrowed; this

includes the book title, the book author and the call number of the book. After the

manual encoding of the details, the librarian saves the borrower/s’ files which can be

found at their library records. The records will keep track on the library’s assets for

monitoring and updating purposes.

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Verification

Encode and update

Book inventory monitoring

Book inventory report

Folder

Updated report

Folder

Verified book details

Folder

Library File Storage

Folder

Library File Storage

Folder

Verified Report

Folder



Data Flow Diagram

Library file storage

The diagram above shows the data flow diagram of Marikina City Library. It starts

from the filling of the call slip of the borrower. The call slip that includes the books and

borrowers’ details will be send to the librarian. The librarian will receive the call slip and

processed it for verification. The verified book information will be encoded to the

library’s file storage. The recorded information will now be kept by the librarian for

tracking and the book or library material will be given to the borrower.

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Borrower Librarian

Book request form

Valid book request

Send Details to Librarian

Verified Book details

Processed Details

Library Material

Book and borrowers’ details

Verify the status of materials

Encode the Details

Diagram 3. Data Flow Diagram of the Existing System



CHAPTER III

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

General Problem

The study aims to make an automated library system specifically for the Marikina

City Library. The general problem of this study is the anarchy in the facilitation of the

processes and operations in the library using the manual system. Current system is

manual maintenance of all the entities and transaction of the library is a paper based

system. Maintaining a manual system like what they currently have wastes a lot of time

and effort, and it may be subjected to constrain in operations and information errors.

Though many library systems are now practicing and operating by the use of automated

library system, there are still some libraries that operating manually by group of people.

In this case The Marikina City Library is included.

In such situations many people involved in the process of managing the library

such a way that to keep records regarding the books & students (borrowers), check the

books manually, keep records on issued books etc. All these things have to be carried

out manually and if the library is large in content handling is also a problem. This

problem slow down the processes that must be done every day, it also makes massive

problems especially to the students and to the librarian as well. On the other hand

keeping large amount of maintenance workers may cost a lot and it will not be efficient

for a library. Therefore there should be a reliable way to manage the library system.

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Specific Problems

1. What are the reasons of producing an unguaranteed accurate report in the

library?

2. What could be the cause of the lack of immediate information modification and

retrieval in the current system, specifically with the availability of books in the

library?

3. What are the processes present in the current system that results to the lost of

information needed by the operations of the library?

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CHAPTER IV

THE ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM

From the process of the existing system, it shows that the manual operation

arises from the problems of slowing down of the processes that must be done every

day. Using manual system for a library has a great impact on the way it processes and

operates its day to day transactions. It also makes massive problems to the transactions

between the borrower and to the librarian.

From the current system that Marikina City Library has, it leads to the different

problems, from the access of information, security of the information and preparation of

reports; it becomes really difficult in a manual system. Even after hard work, if one staff

was able to prepare it then it is not guaranteed that the prepared report is accurate and

up to date. “Nothing is permanent “everything changes, as time passes on the same

stands true with the system, which is subjected.

One can imagine how difficult it is to alter some information written on the piece

of paper. One way to alter is just cut off and throws away the paper and rewrite the

same information with minor changes on the fresh sheet of paper. Another way is erase

the previous information.

The librarian or library staffs have to make transactions with number of book at a

number of times. There are always chances of recording information about the same

book number of times. This is “redundancy”. Redundancy invites inconsistency. In case

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some information about a member or book is maintained twice or more than twice in

future, if modification done at one place then how they be able to decide which of the

various information about the same is correct.

The lack of immediate retrieval and security of the information brought by the

manual system is evidently present to a paper based system like the Marikina City

Library. The retrieval and quick inquiries in the information about the availability of

Books is slow. It is caused by the unorganized paper based system; it is hard to sort

information in a large number of files.

Addition to that, Information is not information, if it is unordered. To make data

useful the library needs to store it on various basis like on the basis of Book code, Title

id, subject id, etc., but imagine how to store information in a manual system.

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CHAPTER V

FORMULATION OF RECOMENDATION

Alternative Course of Action 1

An Automated Information System for Marikina City Library

The automated information system will carry out such operations in the library

that will sufficiently alter the problems faced by the library’s current system. Having the

system, it will Immediately retrieve needed information for a specific transaction, a

better storage facility ,better sorting of efficient report , quick sorting of information,

preparation of efficient report, accuracy of data such as no redundancy hence no

inconsistency and Prompt updating of information.

The operations present are the issuance and returning of books in the

library. In the issuance of the book, the information needed by the librarian

will just have to be encoded in the system and save it as a record in the

library. Whenever the librarian needs the records it can be easily accessed.

In terms of returning of books, the librarian can easily update the status of

the book that had been returned. By that, the status of the book/s is now

available for borrowing by another person again.

It is also a creation of a secured and accessible system whereby the

system can be accessed only by the authenticated user using the password

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protection mechanisms. The system can be used to store large volumes of

books and student data.

From the system itself, the librarian or the library in charge will use the

system for the transactions of the borrower/s and the library staff. The

system proposed can also be use to easily monitor the status of the books

provided with the personal information of the borrower/s.


An Online Library Information System

The online information library system is consisting of a website for the process of

the operations in the library. This will be system that will benefit the Marikina City Library

staffs and the borrowers as well. The creation of the online system is a useful system

and website for the part of the borrower. It is for the reason that, the inquiries of the

book that they tend to borrow can be made straight to the website exclusively made for

the Marikina City Library. The borrower can search the book in the shelf of the library

and get an immediate result if the book is available for use or not.

Asides from the quick access of the books inquiries, it is also convenient since

the borrower won’t have to spend a time and money in going to the library’s premises.

For the security and updating of the information in the online system, it is less prone to

problems, since the access for administration of the website is strictly made for the

people in charge of the website.

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Computerized File Storage System

In this computerized system, it will be dealing with the use of computer software

such as the Microsoft office specifically Excel in keeping the records of the information

of the books needed by the librarian and the borrower. The librarian can store

information indicating the relevant data needed such as the book title, call number and

the personal information of the borrower. This system is useful since it can create a

back up for all the data stored without the constrain of losing some encoded files.

What makes it effective also is the fact that it is economically feasible. The library

will not be spending a huge amount of money in creating a system like an automated

system and for the payment for the I.T specialist who will be in-charge of creating and

facilitating the system created for the library’s operations. The library staff who can

handle a simple excel operation can operate and be in-charge of that activity.

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CHAPTER VI

VALIDATION OF RECOMMENDATION

Alternative Course of Action 1Alternative Course of Action 2Alternative Course of Action 3

An Automated Information system for Marikina City Library

The Automated Information system will be used for the replacement of the

manual system of Marikina City Library. A system that will alter the current problems

faced by the operations in the library and will improve the processes present by the use

of a computerized system. It is a computerized system that uses a various collection of

computer technologies such as computer machines, printers, programming language,

database system and so on.

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The new system will provide the librarian with an effective way to control all the

library operations, an easy way to control and managing borrowing and return books

and Ability to perform stocktaking with minimum amount of effort.

This recommended system will perform necessary task of the librarian such as

the issuance of the books to the borrower. It will keep track to the materials in the library

which are available for use and those that are not.

The accuracy of the information will take place since there will be spaces

provided for the information needed to be stored in the system. The security of those

files and the system itself is also implemented due to the exclusive username and

password for the administrator of the system.

This will also serves to be the file storage system of the library for the issuance

information by the borrower that will ensure the security of the books. From all the

alternative actions enumerated, it is the most effective since it will be use by any

appointed personnel to use this kind of system.

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automated information system for marikina city library

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