Development of a Sms based library management system

Abstract

University libraries serve the teaching and research needs of students and staff. Basically there are two complementary purposes: to support the university curriculum, and to support the research of the university academics and students. In the current situation of Sri Lanka, the university libraries heavily require alternative services to increase the efficiency, to serve the readers in an easy to use manner as well as to save cost. Reservation, sending overdue reminders and circulating important announcements are in the top of this list. This report describes an information system developed to address the above mentioned issues by developing a SMS based library management system. Under this work, three important services were automated successfully with the support of a SMS server. The developed system is also capable to handle common functionalities of a typical library system. The front end was implemented with Microsoft Visual Studio and back end was supported by Microsoft SQL Server. The system developed was tested with sample data. Receiving SMS and sending SMS were monitored to increase the reliability of the system. As well sending a prompt SMS to confirm a reservation as soon as a copy of the relevant book is returned was tested to provide a better service towards the readers. Ultimately, the system was capable to successfully deal with the relevant functionalities. Even the system was developed targeting the main library in University of 'Kelaniya, the system can be used at any university library with minor modifications