Definition – Nature of the problem

The ‘SAJ entertainment’ media library is a typical library that rents out various media including Digital Video disc, video CD’s and Magnetic video tapes. Located in Mirihana Nugegoda, Sri Lanka, it makes available a form of home entertainment for the entire family.

The SAJ entertainment media library has another subdivision located in Kalubowila, Sri Lanka, but is a smaller branch, the Mirihana branch being the main.
There are three departments of the library. These being the Video rentals, Accounts and the maintenance departments. For this project, I would be focusing mainly on the Video rentals department as this is the section the management has decided to computerize.

In the Video rentals department, being the sector chosen to be computerized, there are a total of eight employees. These being, two for entering the rental details onto the record books, four to assist the customers who come to the library by showing them to the newest selection of media, and the most interesting, and the other two staff members who are given the task of constantly updating the library’s selection of movies with the latest, following consent of the management.

Work flow of the system
The present manual system employs forms as a mean of data input. These forms are discussed along with their relevant purposes below.

Admittance of a new member
Once when a new customer wants to join the library, he is given new member form. This form could be filled ‘then-and-there’ or taken away to be filled at leisure. Once this form is completed and handed, the details of the customer are recorded into the records book, and the customers’ form is filed and stored for further reference.

The customer is required to make the payment of the membership depending on the member type the customer desires. If the customer has chosen Annual membership, he is entitled to pay a sum of two thousand rupees each year; else if he wishes to have a Life membership, he is entitled to pay a ‘once-and-for-all’ fee of five thousand rupees. Alongside these payments, the customer must pay a refundable deposit of One thousand rupees.

Once the customer makes the relevant payments, the customer is presented with a membership card that he is expected to produce every time he wishes to borrow any media from the library.

Borrowing media
When a member wishes to borrow media from the library, the membership card is requested, and recorded on the borrowings record along with the relevant media information alongside his name.

A member is allowed to borrow only a certain number of media from the library at one instance. This quantity is decided upon depending on the type of membership that the customer has determined. Typically, an ‘Annual’ member is allowed to have access to four movies at a time, whereas a ‘life’ member is allowed ten movies at an instance.

Similarly, the overdue date is also determined in a related manner to the above. An ‘annual’ member is given a due date of a week from the date borrowed, whereas a ‘life’ member is given two weeks from the borrowed date. The due date is filled in to the records depending on these criteria.

When the media is returned to the library, the particular borrowing record is moved into a separate file and stored for reference.

If there is any overdue payments to be made, the number of days the media is overdue is multiplied by a flat rate of twenty rupees per day (excluding holidays), which in turn is multiplied by the amount of media borrowed. Once this payment has been made, a receipt is issued to the customer that contains details of the payment made.

Terminating membership
In a condition where a member wishes to terminate his membership with the library, the membership card is withdrawn and the refundable deposit made at the time of joining is issues along with a receipt describing the transaction.

Investigation and Analysis

Should the database system to be implemented is to be successful, the involvement of the end-users are vital in the analysis stage. It is a must to ensure that the users’ requirements are satisfied by the developed system. In this stage, the requirements of the users are identified in order to proceed with the development of the database system.

Fact finding

As the initial stage of identifying the users’ requirements, fact finding methods are employed. These include,

• Reference of past documents – Theses involve the reference of past member application forms, membership termination forms, and receipts. This would provide a clear initiative of what type of processing is to be done by the database.

• Interviews – Interviewing members of the staff and if feasible, a few members of the media-library, to have an idea of what is expected in their point of view.

• Observations – observing the operational environment during typical operational hours, to identify the reactions of customers and staff members towards aspects of the manual system.

• Questionnaires – bringing in to play questionnaires, to have an overall general impression of the expectations of the customers as well as members of the staff.

As for the fact finding task of the SAJ Entertainment media library, I have decided to utilize the methods described below.

• Reference of past documents – This would make the designing of the interface and functionality requirements of the system identifiable.

• Interviews – conducting interviews with various levels of staff would grant me the opportunity to have a personalized conversation with them, which would assist in achieving individual views concerning the system development.

• Observation – Having an observation of the working environment of the library would give me a suggestion as to how the system is expected to respond to customer demands and the every day workload it is expected to endure.

Interviews

The opportunity to interview levels of personnel, as mentioned above would grant me the access to one-to-one conversations with various staff members, and would also permit me the chance of giving priority to the requirements of the staff members who interact with the system on a frequent basis.

Interview conducted with Mr. Wijeysekara and Mr. Jayasekara whose tasks are to have a log of the rentals made each day.

Interview location: SAJ Entertainment Media library Mirihana branch
Date and time: 6th August 2007, 11:00 am

Mr. Wijeysekara and Mr. Jayasekara, as you know, for the database system to be successful, all requirements must be completed satisfactorily. For this task, I require your help in the design of the system, so please bear with me for the success of this system.

What are the shortcomings that you experience personally when handling a typical day-to-day task in keeping to the demands of the customers?

Interviewee 1: The main drawback that I have experienced personally is that the manual procedures tend to be slow and very tedious when one repeats it many times a day. Other than that, there is a lack of security and the files may tend to be misplaced.

Interviewee 2: In my case, the main problem is the searching of a particular member’s information especially if the member has joined a long time ago. While searching, we have to pull all our file records down from the cupboard in order to search a single member’s information. Also, as he said, the data entry tasks into the manual files are extremely tedious.

The other day I was here, I noticed that a lot of paperwork needs to be done when admitting a customer to the library. What are the reactions of the others towards this problem?

Interviewee: The other don’t complain much, most probably since they know that the work is done by us anyways, do it doesn’t bother them I suppose.

What are the main tasks that you expect the new computerized system to perform?

Interviewee: Actually, I hope that the system would increase the workflow taking place daily and also, it would be good if the system can provide some security to the customers’ information in the database.

Do you think that the computerized system will be accepted by all the staff members?

Interviewee: I think there is no reason for them to reject the system, providing that their requirements are fulfilled Thank you Mr. Wijeysekara and Mr. Jayasekara for bearing with me, and I would try my level best to satisfy your requirements of the computer system.

The above interview with Mr. Wijeysekara and Mr. Jayasekara highlights a few drawbacks the staff has to face during operational conditions. The lack of security, due to the files being stored in cupboards and drawers, the updating of records, as one members information may be repeated in several places, and the location of a particular members information since the files may not be in order and each file would have to be accessed during search.

Interview with Mr. Jayathileke, one of the four who show the members to the latest selection of media

Interview location: SAJ Entertainment Media Library – Mirihana Branch
Date and time: 7th August 2007 11:30 am

As you know, Mr. Jayathileke, it is crucial at this stage to get all of the requirements together before finalizing the system, so please let me know of any detail you would like added to the system.

In your opinion, and your experience, what are the problems you have been confronted with while working with the present system?

The main drawback I have experiences is that the location of the latest media is very tedious once a customer leaves after making a selection, mainly because the customers don’t replace the media from the place where they took it from, so the tendency is there for the new to be shuffled with the old selections.

What are the responses of the other three in the group?

As far as I know, their main obstacle is the same thing as I said the location of the media.

Any other difficulties you experience?

There is another, this is where there is no particular order to the media; it would be a nice thing to see the media separated into different categories.

Thank you Mr. Jayathileke, I’ll try my best to help you overcome the setbacks you are currently facing working with the manual system.

Interview with Mr. Phillips, the founder of the SAJ Entertainment Media Library

Interview Location: SAJ Entertainment Media Library – Mirihana Branch
Date and time – 09th August 2007 10:00 am

Mr. Phillips, as you may already be knowing, I have interviewed some of your staff and the feed-back I have received from them towards the computerized system has been positive.

What are your personal expectations of the new system?

Actually, I have had a few complaints from the members that the working procedures are a bit slow and a few calculation errors have been made from the staff’s point. So actually, all I want achieved is to minimize complaints from the members and ensure that the calculation errors are minimized by the new system.

Any other potential you expect of the system?

The other problem I have with the manual system is the space requirements of the manual files. Once the records are entered to the computer, I hope I can do-away with most of the manual records, which would save a lot of work space.

Are you planning on expanding the computerized system to the other branch as well?

I have an idea of computerizing the other branch as well, as that branch employs a similar manual system as this branch, but all depends on the success of this branches’ system.

Thank you Mr. Phillips for the information you have provided me with, I would do my best to see that your requirements are satisfied, and enable you to provide your members the best of services as always.

As the above interview shows, just as the previous two interviews, the main requirements are the data accuracy and the efficiency of the transactions. In addition to those requirements, the overcrowding of the workspace due to manual paper files must be eliminated and could easily be overcome by the introduction of the computer system.