Introduction
Purpose
This project has been done to provide a new way of ordering new books in the library. The library has been facing a lot of challenges in ordering of books this is because some at some point ordered two times. The books also in the library were supposed to be increased. The number of students in the university was increasing and the books were therefore to be increased so as to gather the demand of students.
Brisbane square library is the new library that is located at the centre of Brisbane city queens land. It boasts an idea environment for learning. It is located at the architectural stunning building. It is a model library that is technologically advanced with the first automated store in the Brisbane area. The book sorter facilitates an automatic check system that is of great help in managing large collection. The books that were available in the university library were not covering all the needs for students’ comfort study. The materials in the library were supposed to be increased. These materials included may include the journals that were important for the students learning. The magazines may have the necessary information that is required by the students in learning (Stellman & Greene, 2005).
Objectives
The meeting was held and the discussion concerning the books which were supposed to be ordered by the university was obtained. This meeting was attended by the school Librarian, one representative of the students of all departments in the University, Lecturers, the school management and administrator. The discussion was raised by the school librarian. The management was willing to give a total of $150,000 AUS to be spent in books. The information services that were used in the library to search for the books were also supposed to be replaced so that the information could be made available to everyone whenever it is needed. The Brisbane square library was selected as the target for.collection this was because Brisbane square library is a formal public library and the collection of community languages will be the necessary parts of the collection that need to be developed.
Scope
The first thing that was considered in this project was the analysis of the main users’ need, what the users really need and demand for this collection. Additionally, based on the user needs analysis we will know what tools that we need to used for the selection, how we used the tools for selection and why we use the selection tools. Example, like supplier catalogue, book review and some bestsellers lists. The collection resources that were needed to develop that related with user demand. Indeed, some journal article and relevant materials are requiring providing as annotated bibliography that relevant to the library context, subjecting area and user group. The objective of this is to make a good order of the books that will be useful to the students in the University. To order the books that is of high quality and meets the University requirement (Kerzner, 2009).
The Organizational Context
Community Profile
Brisbane Square Library is considered to be one of the newest of Brisbane’s Council libraries. It is located in the central Brisbane city, in Queensland. The library is distinguished by the vibrant and vivid atmosphere. It is located in an architecturally gorgeous building composed of Brisbane City Council and Suncorp. One cannot but Brisbane Square Library is a technologically advanced library, the first library that has the automated book sorter fostering an automatic check in database system, which significantly contributes to managing a large collection of books composed of 110.000 items.
Considering the facilities proposed, a store of resources and the comfortable atmosphere, the visitors would have a chance to enjoy the collection and to experience the working with IT equipment. The can also learn how the library systems works and how the book sorting is carried out.
Data collection
Interviews has been conducted and adequate information has been gathered on the way the operation of the library and the type of books the students require. The interviews were resourceful and the type of books that the students needed has been taken. Here is the list of possible questions to interview the preferences of the visitors and to predict their needs and expectations:
- What type of books do students prefer?
- What process do you follow in ordering of the books?
Another method that has been used is the observation. The developer spent some time with the users of the system and observed their daily tasks. Listening is another method that has been used in data collection. The developer listened to the complaints of the students requirements. Students had a lot of complains about the type of books that were being ordered in the library. After visiting various sites with relevant information about appropriate marketing website, gave got substantial information that assisted in drawing logic to be used in the writing of the books that were to be ordered (Lewis, 2004).
There was a need to collect the users’ requirement because there were other users of the library who did not understand the language. In the library, not all people were able to communicate in English. Some of the users spoke Chinese, Japanese Spanish and French. The library should therefore gather for all these people. There were also the new migrants to the library who needed to continue their reading in their native language. The will establish a linguistic cultural bridge within the multicultural society. This is where the users state what they want the system to do. Feasibility study and requirement analysis was performed to determine the cost-benefit of the system and evaluate if it is worth to implement the system.
Cost benefit was based on the time and effort required to see the system implemented. This was done against the objectives of the proposed system. The target of this library included the students from Brisbane University, the visitors who came to the Brisbane city. It may also include the new migrants and the English speakers who will like to maintain their native language. All the public who lived near Brisbane both young and old individuals should be able to use the library. The young and the adults were targeted as they are the majority of individuals who frequented the library. Most of the adults came to the library to do some research work. They required the books that had enough details on the topic they were venturing. The children books were those books that had a lot of pictures in them.
After the clients state their system requirements, requirement specification was performed and the system requirements were analyzed, one at a time to determine which one is be implemented and which one is not worth it and needs to be discarded. Some requirements are ambiguous or irrelevant to a management information system. The function specification is done in this stage and the way the functions will be performed by the system are determined at this point. Here system is partitioned into components.
The function specification has done at this stage as well as the way the functions will be performed by the system. The library is divided into several parts for proper observation and coordination. The review process, the selection phase, and the type of books that it provided were considered. This was done so that the deeper insight of the library requirement could be established. The staff gave their view and what they expected the library to deliver. Here system is partitioned into components. It is constructing model of the system by viewing logical elements apart from the physical components. A person willing to access information can only do that by use of password. The system will be available to users every time and have minimal down time to avoid failures. Upgrading and adding more features to the system will be easier and the system will be modified according to member’s needs. The system will be composed of modules which can be modified to be used in other systems. It will be possible to install and operate the proposed system to any windows based computer provided it meets the above stated requirements. The system will be developed such that it will be user friendly.
There were a number of functional requirements which were needed. Like the technical requirement. This requirement describes implementation issues that are to be implemented. This is through use of implementing a login dialogue box and login user interface. Another one was the verification requirement. Involves checking if the users have right to access to the system. The system should be able to allow faster data entry, processing and ease data access process.
Literature Review
The Moi public library required new stock that could cover the rising population of the readers. The readers also were increasing in differences as more were foreigners were streaming to the country and the only library available is the Moi Library. This Library is situated in Kenya’s capital city Nairobi.
According to Barkley (2007), analysis is very important since the books that are to be bought to the Library are expected to be used for a longer period of time. The analysis on the books that covered all the students, needs was also important. The money spent on the different types of books was expected to be calculated well so as to meet the demand of the students. The variability in costs and benefits can be influenced by the time to completion. This can also be influenced by the competitive environment. This can be taken into account using different estimate approach. The developer should consider the negative and the positive values. This method is majorly used in complex projects.
This method is good although it ignores the multi stage process which is commonly used in most projects. The decision tree method is often used in illustrating this approach. The project can be terminated if the progress is not as expected. There are a number of problems that may arise through the use of this method. The developer might take the estimates as the exact future outcomes. Sommerville (2007) indicated that a collection development policy should be made which defines a library’s collection objectives and aims. The collection of books was to be made based on the objectives of the Library. After the completion of the project, the librarians were able to use a wide variety of tools that could help them in organizing and selection of books that were needed by the clients.
Three Years Plan
Challenges influencing three years plan (budget, resources, IT management)
Considering the budget of Brisbane Square Library, the available fund for the collection establishment is $ 150.000 AUS calculated for three years. However, as the library has not additional sources for the development and sustainability of this collection, it is necessary to retract $ 20.000 AUS for this activity.
There are different constraints and challenges imposed on the availability of the resources. In particular, the budgetary constraints are narrowed to problems of money allocation required for different types of books. For example, there is a necessity to outline the target audience and their preferences, including the genre of the books and the age category. It should be also stressed that the consideration of age group especially matters. This is why the material to be provided should be relevant and meet the needs of young and adult population. Another existing problem argues the necessity to introduce the new material and to insure its continuous renovation.
The resource budget will be primarily distributed between the adult fiction and non-fiction books, since they are in high demand among the customers. At this point, the library can face the problems in anticipating the materials and resources costs, the influence of inflations, the publication formats, and the availability of the required literature. Additionally, the library can experience in difficulties in predicting the customers’ preferences and expectations that are constantly undergoing changes.
According to approximate calculations, one third of the budget should be distributed to the processing and cataloguing the new material. It is predicted that in the first two years the larger amount of funds will be used for cataloguing and arranging the existed books whereas in the following years, the rest of the budget is planed to spend on maintenance and checking of the proper order of the books, taking into consideration the amount of the existed ones. The retrospective and donation should not be deprived of attention either.
As the library is equipped with the latest technological devices, the library should pay more attention to the training programs for the customers and for the personnel that will insure an easy access to the online catalogue of the Brisbane Square library. This is why the library personnel should take into consideration the security issues to be convinced that all the sources proposed online has a limited access.
Selection Focus
As it has been reported previously, the Brisbane library contains about 110.000 items. In this regard, the development of collection methods cannot do without the application of computerized devices. Once again, the introduction of the electronic book collect has considerably improved the quality of services and the collection policy in general (Lee, 2000). But aside from the software advancement, the selection should also include the needs of the customers and the potential users of the software.
Making a primary focus on the resource management and resource collection, the library can face the problem of relevancy when arranging the sources. A serious problem constitutes in terms of literature sampling since, on the one hand, the new material is in demand among the target visitors, and, on the other hand, the old resources should properly compiled for the librarian and for the visitors to have an immediate access to it, if necessary.
During the next three years, the Brisbane library will be focused on devising micro and macro selection programs that can control the supplied items. In particular, micro selection programs include the periodical review of plan profiles where macro selection programs can insure the online access to the selected books and journals. Applying this model, the library can create a large package of titles with regard to the price and to discipline those title belong to. In this case, the selection development policy of Brisbane Square library will be focused on tracking the title by discipline rather than by price. The main advantage of such method lies in a convenient access to the titles of electronic books and journals.
Aside from the introduction of personnel training programs, a special attention should be paid to the format requirements. Owing to the fact that the some customers are not native speakers, the library should provide advance their online catalogues by providing translation of titles into different languages.
Budget Approval
The amount of money in this project was $150,000 AUS. Below is the budget that has been used in the project.
Viewing the table, the most part of the budget will be spent in the first year to provide an immediate and marked improvement of the resource base. During the subsequent years, a smaller amount of money will be spent to preserve and sustain the existed resources (Versuh, 2008).
Selection Evaluation
Selection evaluation includes the analysis of the library’s collection, its application, and its impact. It provides information of different aspects of the collection, like number of titles in particular subject, the quality of represented formats, and the condition of the materials (Johnson, 2009).
As it has been reported earlier, the application of the automatic book sorter provide greater privilege for Brisbane Square library, since it helps preserve time in searching for a particular source and provides accuracy of the search. However, the main disadvantage of this selection method consists in creating difficulties for those users who lack experience in using the electronic catalogues. Besides, the librarians can also have problems in managing the technological devices.
Despite the disadvantages listed above, the automatic book sorter greatly contributes to a proper arrangement of the literary sources according to the subject, relevance, and year of publication. It is a brilliant alternative to manual method of collection, which is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. Furthermore, the as electronic archives are available online and users do not need to attend the library to check the presence of a particular literary source.
Summary
Brisbane square library is the new library that is located in the centre of Brisbane city queens land. It boasts an idea environment for learning. It is located at the architectural stunning building. It is a model library that is technologically advanced with the first automated store in the Brisbane area. The book sorter facilitates an automatic check system that is of great help in managing large collection. The books available in the library, however, did not fit the customers’ needs and expectations. Therefore there appeared the necessity to improve the literature resources and to change the collection development policy.
Conclusion
The Brisbane library is the best library in the region that is distinguished by technological level. Due to the automated services, the library has manage to increase the demand and to invite more reader. Due to some insignificant shortcomings detected in the collection development process, this project has been done to facilitate the efficient ordering of the books. Hence, the ordered books will be expected to cover the customers’ needs. Some of the frequent customers of the library do not understand English so the there must be translation on the types of books that the customer required.
Recommendations
The finding revealed during the collection analysis, the Brisbane Square library should take into consideration the following amendments:
- The staff should be appointed who will be monitoring the operation of the library and recommending the necessary amendments to be made to the system.
- There is the necessity to regularly conduct the research on customers’ needs and preferences.
- The library should perform a regular review of the books available in the library to make the necessary amendment to catalogue.
References
Barkley, B., 2007. Project Management in New Product Development. New York.
Johnson, P. 2009. Fundamentals of collection development and management. US: ALA Editions.
Kerzner, H., 2009. Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. 10th ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Lee, S. H. 2000. Collection development in the electronic environment: shifting priorities. NJ: Routledge.
Lewis. M. 2004. Project Planning,Scheduling,& Control. New York: McGraw-Hill Education Pvt Ltd. McGraw-Hill Professional
Sommerville, I. 2007. Software engineering. 8th ed. New Jersey: Addison-Wesley.
Stellman, A., & Greene, J., 2005. Applied software project management. London: O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Verzuh, E., 2008. The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management. 3rd ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons.