Romasoft MyBooks Library software endeavours to answer library issues faced by small to medium Libraries in the world specially those in schools and communal centres. The Software is created to help with organising books in the library so that they are easily located by the user or the librarian. The library is created with two interfaces for the Librarian and for the user looking for a book in the self-service type of libraries.

The Librarian interface is an administrative interface where all back-end Jobs are done including Book entries, Authors entries, Publishers etc., and is meant for the librarian to be able to generate all sorts of Library reports and receipts for the borrower and for record keeping.

The Library User Interface is created with minimal items such as searching and filtering books of the library by different criteria including, Filters by: publisher, Genre, Topic, Most borrowed, Category etc.

At best, the needs of most libraries in the world are met by this software and keeping track of the inventory and borrowing records are made easy and fluent.

Backend, the library keeps a backend of database developed in SQL Server Database which gives it the fluidity of making all sorts of queries with much easy.

How it works

Company Details:

This tab is used by the librarian or administrator of the library to record company details. These details are essential for ensuring that reports generated reports and emails are given the looks and headed by company details

Figure 2 Company view Interface

To Record a company and its details: Click the Company Details button/tab on the left side of the administration/Librarian interface and then click new
Enter the record in the Company Details form.
Note: The ID number is auto generated and does not require your attention, so leave it as it is.
To insert the logo and the header, use images as show in the picture above. The header image is the image shown on the header of every report generated by the system unless you create a custom report. Right click the header or the logo image area and select an appropriate image.
Click Save to append the record to the backend database.

You can delete this record by clicking the Delete Button at the bottom right corner of the application or the delete button at the bottom of the form. Always save to append the changes to the database.

These forms are important to enter before the use of the library in that they are essential for registration of books and many filter drop down fields, therefore they need to be entered in advance or at least before you register a book.

The forms are such as the Book Publishers, Authors, Library Shelves, Book Categories etc.

To create any of the above record:

Click the form name as in picture on the right.
Click New button to create a new record. The record ID will be computer generated automatically.
Enter the record in the form fields as suggested by the labels on the left of each form e.g. Name: Tomas
Click the Save Button or Ctrl + S if activated or if you are using the pro version of the Library Software.

Enter as many records as necessary for these helper forms so that you don’t have to keep coming back when entering the Library Books in the Books form.

Books

Books form allows an administrator or Librarian to load books into the library. Before attempting to Lord a book in the library, ensure that the necessary helper form’s information has been loaded for that given book. See Helper Forms above

Create New Book Record

Select the Books Button/Tab under the Library Records Accordion. The Books form should load immediately or under 5 seconds depending on how many book records you have in the library.
Click the New button or Ctrl + N if you are using the pro version of the library
Select the Shelf: this is the location in the library where the book is placed. Assumably, libraries use shelves that have rows and columns such as A1 were A could be the row number and 1 the column number or vise versa. This information can be entered or accessed in the helper form: Library Shelves.
The Dropdowns: Author, Category, Language and Publisher are updatable using the relevant Helper forms. Select the appropriate information and enter the rest of the information as needed for a given book.
The number of copies is the total number of physical books of this book to be put in the library.
The rating of the book can be retrieved from either publisher’s website or google.
To insert the image, right click the image area and select Load to get the image from the computer, assuming you saved one, or select Camera to take a photo of the book from the camera of your computer.
Click Save to save the record. The record will be updated in the Book list in the books grid below.

Edit a Book

Select the Books Button/Tab under the Library Records Accordion. The Books form should load immediately or under 5 seconds depending on how many book records you have in the library.
Search for the name of the book or the ISBN number of the book from the search bar on top in the title bar of the library.

Figure 5 Main Application Search Bar

If there are more than 1 book found of the same title, they will be listed in the book grid below. Select the appropriate book in the grid.

Make changes as need be and click save.

Book Loan

The Book Loan library form allows the librarian to lend out books to the library users such as students and or the public

Figure 6 Books Loan User Interface

The student info section shows the user’s details while the Book filter section allows the librarian to filter books depending on the active filters.

The filtered book will be displayed in the Books Details section. If there is more than one book that meets the criteria of the filter, they will be listed in the Book List grid.

The Loan Book(s) Section is an active section that list books borrowed to a particular person it is also used when a person returns the book.

Loan a Book to a User

To loan a book to a library user, follow the steps below

Search for the person or library user in the main search box of the MyBooks Library App. If the person exists in the library, s/he will be listed in the Student Info Section. To ensure that accurate search results are obtained, use the student number as registered in this app. Like that, only one record of the person will be searched for and found if it exists.
Use the filter search bar to locate a book you would like to borrow out. You can search the book by ISBN (recommended) or by Title or by the starting part of the title of the book, or by category, publisher, or language in the filters section.
If the book is located, select it in the Books List.
In the Loan Book(s) Section enter the number of days the book will be borrowed out and click Borrow Out. The book will be listed below this section showing the Title, the Due Date, the Load Date and the Amount Due which must be 0 (Zero) at this moment.

Note: if at the time of lending the book out, the client had another book they did not return and is past the due date, the Library rejects borrowing out this book due to pending book(s) return.
If all is well, the library indicates that the transaction was successful.
To borrow out another book to the same person, this time just start from number 2 on the filters to get a new book and follow the steps again.

Return a Book

To return a book, search for the person in the main search bar of the application
In the Loan Book(s) Section, select the book the user has returned and click Book Returned.

Figure 7 Book Return Button

The book disappears from the list borrowed by this library user

Inventory

The books inventory shows all the books currently in the library. This inventory grid can then be printed using the Print List button

Reports and Reporting Tools

The library provides many reporting tools and most of which be used straight out of the box. System generated reports do not require a lot of effort to use. The are usually self-explanatory and there naming system suggests to a greater extent what they report on.

The reports in the Romasoft MyBooks Library are the printable parts of the library that provides management decision making facilities as well as students/users receipting

All reports are printable as well as exportable to formats such as PDF, excel, RTF etc.

To open a report, click the report button under the Library Reports Accordion.
Note: some reports open withing the application window while others may open their own window
Filter the report data in accordance with the filters provided withing the report and click the submit button. Cancel to delete the current filter and start again
The report will get generated either with a toolbar or with a ribbon bar.

Figure 8 Toolbar report

Figure 9 Ribbon Report

Use the toolbar button in picture to export
and the same in the ribbon report
You can print the report by clicking the print button and selecting your default printer. The printer button with a lighting bulb prints to the default printer without going through selections of printers

Custom Reports

The MyBooks Library becomes robust with reporting by using this reporting tool

Figure 10 Custom Report Interface

The Custom Report Ribbon Report Designer includes the following elements:

1. Ribbon

Contains the main tabs: Home, Layout, Page, and View, and contextual tabs specific to the currently selected report control. The Ribbon control allows you to switch between Designer and Preview, and open the Scripts editor.

2. Design Surface

An area where you can add report controls and edit a report layout.

3. Toolbox

Lists all available report controls. You can drag a control from the toolbox and drop it onto a report design surface.

4. Report Explorer

Displays a tree-like hierarchy of report elements, data sources, and other components, and allows you to manage a collection of visual styles.

5. Field List

Displays the data source schema and allows you to manage calculated fields and parameters. Use the UserDesignerOptions.FieldListMaxExpandLevelOnSearch property to limit the level of the search-as-you-type feature for nested fields in the search box.

6. Report Gallery

Allows you to store and reuse report controls, styles, data sources, and entire report layouts.

7. Properties Window

Allows you to view and modify report settings and report element properties.

8. Group and Sort Panel

Allows you to group and sort data in a report.

9. Report Design Analyzer

Displays errors, warnings, and information messages that help users create or enhance a report layout.

10. Status Bar

Displays information about the selected report element. Contains a bell icon that displays the error count. Double-click this icon to invoke the Report Design Analyzer. The Status Bar contains a slider to change the zoom factor for the design surface.

Romasoft MyBooks Lib...

Romasoft MyBooks Library