Textbook

Rental Library

(TRL)
Specification

Overview

The Rental is responsible for a number of different functions related to textbook purchasing, circulation, and inventory. At various times during the year, different Rental tasks must be performed, and it should be easy for the manager to determine which such scheduled tasks have been performed at any given time, and which tasks are due or yet to be performed.

Here is a description of these tasks, organized by the time of year they are typically performed.

Before a Term Begins

Using this class list, the Rental plans the issue of textbooks to students for the upcoming term. Towards this end, the Rental sends out adoption forms (both regular campus mail with printed copies and email) to each professor, listing which classes he/she is scheduled to teach. Each course has an associated candidate list of textbook titles for use in it, though this list may change as per professor preference. The professor is expected to specify which textbook titles they wish to require for each section they teach, filling out and returning the form.

A returned adoption form may request the use of a textbook already present in the Rental stacks (used before), or else a textbook that is completely new to the Rental (and which thus must be ordered for the first time).

New textbooks need to be ordered from publishers or used-book companies, requiring purchase orders to be created and printed. These purchase orders include information about the vendor, along with multiple purchase order line items (since more than one textbook may be ordered at a time from a vendor).

Continuing textbook titles (those ordered and used in previous terms) may also be specified, since current class enrollments may require the ordering of additional textbook copies (either new or used).

During Book Issue at the Beginning of a Term

The worker then enters the barcode (scanning with a laser barcode scanner is most frequent) for each presented copy for checkout. After all such copies have been entered, the worker completes the session, and the system assigns a due date and checks out each presented copy to the given patron’s record. All checked-out books must be returned before this date, or else an overdue hold will be attached and a corresponding fine charged to the patron’s record, according to the Rental’s overdue policy.

There are different problems that can arise during checkout: student id’s or copies won’t scan or give bad scans, students and/or copies aren’t recognized by the system, and so forth. An important part of a working system is to make sure that all such problems are anticipated and procedures implemented to handle them.

During Book Return at the End of a Term

After the End of a Term

If overdue books are not returned by some later date (as determined by the Rental manager), they will automatically sold to the student, with the resulting total replacement cost charged to them.

During the Term (between Term Issue and Return)

Yearly Inventory and Reports

Once a year, the Rental performs a complete inventory of all copies. Rental staff scans each book within the stacks, using a mobile scanner attached to a computer. Not all books can be scanned in a single day, so that the inventory must be carried out over a number of weeks, during which time books still must be available for circulation or sale.

After all shelf copies have been scanned, the resulting data is processed to obtain a list of missing books, taking into account all copies that may have circulated into or out of the stacks during the inventory scanning process.