Designing an online public access catalogue for Jinja Progressive Academy Library

Abstract

The project study aimed at designing an Online Public Access Catalogue library for Jinja Progressive Academy Library so that to ease the access and retrieval information materials. The project objectives were to: Identify services offered by Jinja Progressive academy library, establish the information of the users of Jinja progressive academy library, Examine how information resources are currently accessed at Jinja progressive academy Library, Establish the challenges faced by Jinja progressive academy Library in accessing and retrieving of information materials and propose an online public access catalogue for Jinja progressive academy library to address the challenges in accessing and retrieving information A case study research design was used while adopting a qualitative and quantitative research approach. Interviews, Questionnaires and Observation were the methods of data collection used. The Questionnaire, interview schedules and observation were sampled to the respondents and the sample size of respondents used was 40 of the JIPRA library users. The study project found out that, JIPRA library does not have an OPAC which hinders access and retrieval of library information material. The current services provided by JIPRA library are done manually. The challenges that are faced in providing the service include time consuming, congestion in the library, long lines leading to delay and a lot of noise caused by students etc. The Study project concluded that, if there is no an OPAC at Jinja Progressive Academy Library, library users will not be able to access and retrieve information materials effectively from the library. The study project recommends that the management of JIPRA library should adopt the proposed online public access catalogue since it is online and will improve the access and retrieval of library information material by the users in the library.