Hi! Readers. How you doing? Today I have brought you another interesting post. From this post you can have an ideas about online library management system. Most of us develop projects. Sometimes we don’t know what to implement in our system. At a glance we can’t decide what are the modules and functions for our problem domain. Therefore we do some research firstly. This article is to help that research works and get an idea about your problem domain. As well as I try to bring you these knowledge as much as simply and nicely I can. Let’s see what are the things under online library management system we will see today. If you want to know about more project ideas please check this post. PHP project ideas.
Scope of LMS
Here we will discuss the scope for online functioning library management system. I will list down the modules and brief description about them.
Member Management
In a library there are members. It’s mandatory to maintain member details in a library management system. For that you can include this module. As functions for this module you can add basic CRUD functions. As example for those add a new member to a system. View already existing members. Remove a member. Update member details. When deleting a member you don’t need to delete the data from the database. Actually that’s not the best practice. You can maintain a status like 1 and 0 to represent active and inactive.
User Management
For the every system we develop we have to add users. Before you develop this module it is better that you define user roles first. Because when one creating a user it’s has to fill the user role for that particular user. For this module as well you can include functions like add user. That meaning adding a new user. Update user. Here you can update user role and status. View users in the system. Here you can implement password reset also. Because you might have seen forgot password option is enable to users most of social media sites. But in systems we don’t usually do that. We give that permission to admin user. So you can implement that password reset option as well as.
Book management
Now in our online library management system users are there and readers are there. So we need books. Since this is a online e- library books has to insert to the system. So you can implement a module to manage all the books in the system. Add books, update books, view books , remove books you can do as functions here.
Library servicers
You know what are the functions that happen inside a library. So you can implement those function inside this e-library as well. Borrowing books, lending books can perform by the librarian. Search books, read books, referencing books can perform by all the members usually. Usually in e library the books are uploaded as softcopies. When borrowing a book you can send the book URL to the member via email. That is also a function. When sending the link you can set an expiry date for that link. After that time the link no longer valid.
Payment management
By payment management you can manage the payments. In a library we have to do some payments. Initially when we join as member we have to pay membership fee. Then once after 4 or 5 years we have to renew the membership. For that we have to pay. Fine payments you don’t need to implement since we use softcopies we can issue a link to someone else. So it’s not necessary to issue fine because the link member also cannot use. Here you can implement a payment gateway or payment gateway simulation. For the simulations you can use sand box.
Reports
Reports are a mandatory feature in every system. Therefore for this online library management system as well you can make reports. We use reports to gather important details and use to do decision making. Therefore the reports should not be just a report. There needs to be business value from that report mostly. If the reports are graphically also shown it’s better. Because visual figures help more and make easy the decision making. You can give a report most borrowed books. Monthly membership count. By looking at mostly borrowed or viewed books they can create separate URL according to the traffic. Report of members who didn’t lend the books. Actually lending process isn’t happening you can suspend their membership after some period in this case. List of members who’s memberships needs to renew. Then the librarian inform them earlier. For that you can implement mail sending function again. And again list of members who’s memberships is already suspend.
Apart from this you can implement subscriptions. That is also come to payment module. In library some books needs to pay and read. So you can maintain this as well as. Accept a feedback for upcoming books also you can implement a function.
Objective of library management system
The main objective of library management system is to manage the functions inside a library smoothly without facing conflicts. When it comes to e – library there are other objectives as well apart from above one.
- Objectives of online library management system.
- Increase the accessibility for the user since available in the web.
- Save time since no need to travel and visit physical library.
- 24 x 7 Library is used. Therefore good user experience for the members.
- No need to use multiple copies of a same books since books available online. In physical library we keep at least two, three copies of a one books. That’s because when one borrow a book another person cannot borrow it until two weeks pass. In online we access books through URL therefore no issue.
- More people can access at the same time. In physical library we have limited space.
- These period people don’t go out due to COVID situation. E – library can access at any time. Therefore the system can access even in the natural disasters.
- There is no any security or physical threat or harm to the library. Because the books or library are not available physical no one cannot steal or harm it. Yet some kind of security issues can arise from internet. For that we need to do necessary security setups.
Use case diagram for library management system

Use case diagram for online library management system

Conclusion
We have come to the end of our post. We have discussed what are the modules and functions for a online library management system. Simply scope for a library management system. I hope this post brought you important details. If you have any comments please let us know by commenting. You can find the comment box below. We will meet with another interesting topic. Until then goodbye all!