LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: HOW TO AUTOMATE AND PUT A SMALL LIBRARY ONLINE

Abstract

Even with the amount of information that is diffused nowadays over the internet it is undeniable that the books in paper format are still a valuable source of knowledge either because they are often a reliable source or because the paper gives us a sensation that a screen does not give. Having said that, it is essential that a library not only publishes on the internet all the available books but also ensures good management for all that knowledge source. That is how this research and project comes up, a compilation of library standards for its management from the cataloguing of the books to its physical display in the library, as well as the automatization of all that standards. This study and the application of its results were done in a small library, Centro de Camões that complements the Department of Humanities of Marie Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland. It used the Agile software engineering methodology, a light, efficient and low risk way of development. User stories were used as an approach that promotes essentially the user’s point of view in the solution, i.e lead the team to think, question and perceive what they are developing. The main features of the automatization and management system are the cataloging with a book online search script by ISBN that returns the vital intel of a book, a website that shares with the users all the bibliography available and a books manager, also includes a requisitions manager that allows warnings to the library and users. The framework used was Django, a high-level Python Web framework. On it, we apply technologies like channels, Web sockets and all the fundamental guidelines of Web development. Therefore, this article is a jump start for those who want either implement a similar solution in a library or want to apply some technologies used on this project on their own projects, the source code of this project can be found at https://github.com/tfcl/camoes.