Why the books can be borrowed for 15 days and CD for 8 and periodical after a month ?
Where the books should spend more time ? In the Library or with the Library users ?
What is the basic objective of a Library ? Give more chance for the users to read books or stack the books neatly on shelves ?
Now if the main objective is to read the books then why there has to be a limit of period on circulation ? Let someone take a book for as much he or she wants .....
Then the obvious questions would be what about others ? What if someone else needs the same book ? Answer is simple , ask the first person to return and give it to second (for as much time as he / she wants).
So my dream circulation system will not have any limit on the period for which the books or other material could be loaned for , let the person take it and not even bother to renew and use it for as much time he or she wants to use. The moment someone else need it , an email or sms would be sent and then return it back to the library , but if you do not return then there would be a fine ! And if your return say within a week or whatever time decided by the library on someone else's request - you would get additional points which you can trade against your fine ! so there is a motivation also for you to return it early if you really do not need it.
This is very much possible - technology is available to do everything I written above . Only thing that is not available is a Guinea pig !
Any takers ?
Thursday, May 29, 2008
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4 comments:
I agree with these points !
I do agree.
But somewhere I feel restriction or marking a due date should be mandatory that will help the owner to remind the borrower for his over due’s.
I do agree.
But somewhere I feel restriction or marking a due date should be mandatory that will help a library to remind the borrower for his over due’s. Reminder of overdue is a soft way of saying we are still the owner’s as you have rightly said using of present technology should be introduced, but I have seen RFID on HF is slowly penetrating the Library sector and most of the libraries are coping up with there budget to introduce the same forget about RFID on UHF and till the time a new communication technology enters the Market SMS will be more cost effective communication solution.
In a nutshell are libraries put on a 2nd or 3rd priority during budgeting?
Yes its a good approach, but this will have few limitations when there are multiple reservations at the same time. There are various instances which we need to handle
Case 1: Book is issued to a member and currently there are no reservations for this book
- In this case we should not generate a due date as there are no reservations. As soon as any person reserves this book, system should generate the due date and inform the member to whom the book is issued. (what you suggested will work here)
Case 2: Book is issued to a member and there are few more reservations for this book
- In this case the book should be issued for a limited period.
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