An Online Book-bank Monitoring System

INTRODUCTION
1.1  BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The idea of the book-bank was first conceived at Makerere University in 1977 but it did not take off not until 1990. Makerere University introduced the book-bank system as a component of the University Library. The creation of this unit arose out of the desire by the University to cut down on the cost of allowances given out to students to purchase essential books for their courses. Originally each government-sponsored student would be given an allowance called boom to enable him/her purchase relevant books necessary for the course.

The Book-Bank system was established in Makerere University in 1990 with an initial book stock of 44,000 from the defunct University Bookshop. The stock has steadily increased and stands at over 221,696 books (November 2003), distributed in all departments, schools and institutes of the University. Departmental Book-Banks are managed at departmental level (Available;   [1]). www.makerere.ac.ug/library
However as the number of students grew, the government/University was no longer able to meet the book requirements in terms of allowances per student every other year. It ought to be noted that the purchased books would thereafter become the property of the student. In order to solve this problem to ensure that students accessed books at a limited cost, it was decided that the University sets up a book-bank project where the money that would otherwise be passed on to students to purchase personal books, instead be used to purchase books that would be put in a pool/bank for use by students after which they would be left behind for use by incoming students. The following objectives were behind the creation of the book-bank:

 i . To help the teaching units (Faculties and Departments) acquire the right books for the syllabus at the right time.
ii. To develop a system capable of sustaining the university education system a midst student’s inability to buy/acquire the right textbooks on a personal basis.
 iii. To utilize carefully the limited funds allocated for textbooks.
 iv. To ensure availability of basic textbooks to students against limited funds.
 v . To develop students ability to handle property loaned to them.

The Book-bank system, coordinated from the Main Library provides the following services:
 i . Solicits Book orders from heads of departments.
 ii. Processes the orders for suppliers; both local and overseas
 iii. Receives and processes the new books acquired.
 iv. Distributes the new processed books to respective departments, schools and institutes.
 v . Maintains a database of the acquired books.
 vi. Carries out annual stocktaking.