JP2007249325A - Book lending system and method, and program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a book lending system that enables users at home to borrow and return books. <P>SOLUTION: A user sends a book lending request specifying a title, a lending date and a return date at a webpage on a Web server 11. A lending management server 12, if determining that the lending is acceptable, registers it in a lending management database and sends the fact to the user's terminal. When the user pays delivery and pickup charges, a lending date confirmation is emailed two days before the lending. When the date is confirmed, a delivery management server 13 requests a home delivery company to make a delivery. As for return, after a similar confirmation, the delivery management server 13 requests the home delivery company to pick up and return the book. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a book lending system, method, and program, and more particularly, to a book lending system, method, and program that enable registration and lending of books using a network.

  In public libraries, etc., the principle is that users go directly to the library when lending or returning books. For this reason, the user is restricted in time and is generally limited to holidays. However, since there are many users on holidays, it takes time to lend / return. For this reason, there was a problem that the return deadline occurred for the lent books. In some libraries, there are services that provide a convenient place for users, such as a return place at the nearest station, but some people can use it.

  Patent Document 1 describes a book lending system that allows a user to purchase or lend a desired book without visiting a library. In the book lending system described in the patent document, a collection list of collections of a plurality of libraries is accumulated in a database. If the desired book is not found in the collection list, the user requests purchase of the book. When a book is purchased and made available, the user uses his / her terminal and the Internet to designate a receiving place such as a convenience store and reserve a loan. When a user designates a place where delivery is desired from his / her terminal and pays a delivery fee for the book, the book is delivered to the designated place. The user goes to the designated place and receives the book.

JP 2002-312541 A

  In the book lending system described in Patent Document 1, although the book lending is described, the return method is not described. In this case, it is necessary for the user to go directly to return or to return directly to the return place of the nearest station. For this reason, the problem of the delay of the return deadline cannot be solved.

  The present invention provides a book lending system, method, and program capable of solving the problems of the prior art and receiving a book and returning the book while the user is at home. Objective.

To achieve the above object, a book lending system according to the present invention is connected to a user terminal and a delivery company terminal via a network, and manages a lending and returning of a library book.
A determination unit that determines whether or not there is an overlap of loan periods with reference to a storage device that stores an already registered loan request when receiving a loan request specifying a book name, a scheduled loan date, and a scheduled return date from a user terminal; ,
When the determination unit determines that there is no duplication, a registration unit that registers the received loan request;
Based on the registered lending request, a delivery request transmitting means for designating a scheduled lending date and transmitting a book delivery request to a delivery company;
A collection / delivery request transmission means for specifying a scheduled return date and transmitting a collection / delivery request for a book to a delivery company with reference to a storage device for storing the lending registration and a storage device for storing a notification that the book has been lent When,
And a registration deletion means for receiving a notification that the return of the book has been completed and deleting the registration of the lending request from the storage device.

Further, the book lending method of the present invention is a book lending management method comprising a server that is connected to a user terminal and a delivery company terminal via a network and manages lending and returning of library books.
The server receives a lending request specifying a book name, a scheduled lending date, and a scheduled return date from the user terminal, and determines whether or not lending periods overlap with reference to a storage device that stores the already registered lending request And steps to
If the determination step determines that there is no duplication, the server registers the received loan request;
The server transmits a book delivery request to a delivery company by designating a scheduled loan date based on the registered loan request;
The server refers to the storage device that stores the lending registration and the storage device that stores the notification that the book lending has been completed, and sends a book collection / delivery request to the delivery company with a scheduled return date. Steps,
Receiving a notification that the book has been returned, and deleting the registration of the lending request from the storage device.

Furthermore, the program of the present invention is a program for a library lending management system comprising a computer that is connected to a user terminal and a delivery company terminal via a network and manages lending and returning of library books. In addition,
The server receives a lending request specifying a book name, a scheduled lending date, and a scheduled return date from the user terminal, and determines whether or not lending periods overlap with reference to a storage device that stores the already registered lending request And steps to
If the determination step determines that there is no duplication, the server registers the received loan request;
The server transmits a book delivery request to a delivery company by designating a scheduled loan date based on the registered loan request;
The server refers to the storage device that stores the lending registration and the storage device that stores the notification that the book lending has been completed, and sends a book collection / delivery request to the delivery company with a scheduled return date. Steps,
The server receives a notification that the return of the book has been completed, and executes a step of deleting the registration of the lending request from the storage device.

  According to the book lending management system, method, and program of the present invention, the user can lend and return the book while at home, the restriction on the use date is removed, and the library side can also prevent the return delay. . Furthermore, by determining whether the lending period overlaps on the system side, it is possible to manage the lending of books only by the system without requiring manual processing.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a book lending system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The book lending system 10 includes a web server 11, a lending management server 12, and a delivery management server 13 installed in a library or a public organization that manages a plurality of libraries (hereinafter collectively referred to as a library). And have. The book lending system 10 is connected to a terminal 15 of a delivery company (or post office) as a delivery company and a terminal 14 of each user via a communication network such as the Internet 16.

  The Web server 11 provides a user with a home page including information on a plurality of libraries. From the home page, it is possible to access a collection list of a plurality of libraries managed by the lending management server 12. The lending management server 12 includes a mark for identifying a book that can be lent to the user in the library collection list, a book that is currently being lent, a book that has already been lent, a book that has received a loan request, and the like. The lending of collections is managed with the identification mark and lending period.

  When the loan management server 12 receives a loan request from the user terminal 14, the loan management server 12 has a function for determining whether or not the loan request is already duplicated with a loan request already registered in the loan management database. When it is determined, the function of returning the fact to the user terminal 14 and when it is determined that there is no duplication, the received loan request is registered in the loan management database, and the fact is notified to the user terminal 14. A function, a function of recording that in the lending management database when the book is actually lent, and a function of deleting a lending request registered in the lending management database when the book is returned. These functions are realized by a program.

  The delivery management server 13 manages the delivery of books for books that have already been lent or books that are currently lent. When the lending request is registered in the database, the delivery management server 13 has a function of registering data for the delivery, a function of sending an e-mail confirming the lending date to the user on a predetermined date, It has a function of transmitting a delivery request to the merchant terminal 15, a function of transmitting an email confirming a return date to the user when a predetermined time limit is reached, and a function of transmitting a collection / delivery request to the delivery company. These functions are realized by a program.

  The operation of the book lending system according to the above embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, a user calls a library home page from a user terminal 14 such as a personal computer (PC) at home (step S1), and accesses a collection list managed by the lending management server 12 therefrom. In the collection list, books that can be lent at the present time are identified and displayed. The user selects the book he / she wants from among the books that can be rented in the collection list, the name of the selected book, the name of the library with the collection, and the day before the date he / she wants to obtain. A lending request including a scheduled lending date indicating the date and a scheduled return date indicating the date that the user wants to return is transmitted to the lending management server 12 (step S2). The lending request includes a user ID code and password registered in advance.

  When the lending management server 12 receives a lending request from a user, the lending management server 12 confirms the user's ID and password, and further refers to a lending management database provided in the lending management server 12 to make a lending request. It is determined whether the name and lending period overlap with other lending request registrations already permitted (step S3). If there is no duplication as a result of the determination, the lending request is permitted, and lending request registration including the user name, scheduled lending date, scheduled return date, and target book name is registered in the lending management database (step S4). ). If it is determined in step S3 that they are duplicates, the result is returned to the user, and the user returns to step S2 again, changes the loan target book or the loan period, and resends the loan request. After the lending request is registered in the lending management database, the user can call the contents at any time and check it on the screen. The screen displayed at the time of this confirmation is illustrated in FIG.

  When the lending request is registered, a delivery schedule is registered in the delivery management server 13 based on it. The contents of the delivery schedule registered in the delivery management server 13 are illustrated in FIG. The user is notified that the loan request has been registered, and the user pays the collection and delivery fee.

  When two days before the scheduled loan date, the delivery management server 13 sends a loan date confirmation email to the user terminal 14 with the book name, loan date, and return date specified (step S5). The user confirms this content and returns a lending date confirmation mail (step S6).

  When the confirmation of the lending date by the user is completed, the delivery management server 13 sends a delivery request mail with the contents shown in FIG. 4 to the delivery company (or post office) (step S7). The courier returns a mail indicating that the request has been acknowledged (step S8). The courier goes to the library on the day of the scheduled loan date, receives the book to be lent from the library, and delivers it to the user's home the next day. The lending management server 12 records in the lending management database that the lending has been completed (step S9).

  When two days before the scheduled return date, the delivery management server 13 transmits a return date confirmation email to the user terminal 14 with the book name and return date clearly indicated (step S10). A return date confirmation email indicating that the return date has been confirmed is returned from the user terminal 14 (step S11). When receiving the return date confirmation mail, the delivery management server 13 sends a collection / delivery request mail to the delivery company terminal 15 (step S12). The delivery company terminal 15 replies to this (step S13). The courier goes to the user's home on the scheduled return date, receives the returned book, and returns it to the library the next day. The lending management server 12 deletes the lending request from the lending management database, records that the book has been returned by the lending request, and moves to the lending history database in the lending management server 12 (step S14).

  In the above embodiment, the actual cost of the delivery fee and the collection / delivery fee is transferred from the user. This transfer is performed until step S5 in which a confirmation mail is transmitted from the lending management server 12 to the user terminal 14. The user performs this transfer from an appropriate financial institution or using internet banking or the like. Alternatively, it may be transferred using the Internet prior to the reply of the confirmation mail from the user in step S6 or at the same time. In any case, the fee is settled before the step S7 in which the library side sends a delivery request to the delivery company.

  The books to be lent include CDs and DVDs in addition to ordinary books and magazines.

  According to the book lending system of the above embodiment, the user can lend / return books including books and CDs without going to the library. Therefore, the book lending service is not restricted by time or day of the week. Can be used.

  For libraries, the lending / returning status can be centrally managed by the system, and the delay in useless lending deadlines can be suppressed, so that more people can use books and CDs. It leads to improvement.

  Although the present invention has been described based on the preferred embodiment, the book lending system, method, and program of the present invention are not limited to the configuration of the above-described embodiment, and various configurations are possible from the configuration of the above-described embodiment. Those modified and changed as described above are also included in the scope of the present invention.

1 is a block diagram of a book lending system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The flowchart which shows the process of the book rental system of FIG. The figure which shows the content of the loan request | requirement registered in a book loan system. The figure which shows the content of the delivery notification registered into a delivery management server in a library rental system.

Explanation of symbols

10: Book lending system 11: Web server 12: Lending management server 13: Delivery management server 14: User terminal 15: Delivery company terminal 16: Internet

Claims (7)

In a library lending management system that is connected to a user terminal and a delivery company terminal via a network and manages lending and returning of library books,
A determination unit that determines whether or not there is an overlap of loan periods with reference to a storage device that stores an already registered loan request when receiving a loan request specifying a book name, a scheduled loan date, and a scheduled return date from a user terminal; ,
When the determination unit determines that there is no duplication, a registration unit that registers the received loan request;
Based on the registered lending request, a delivery request transmitting means for designating a scheduled lending date and transmitting a book delivery request to a delivery company;
A collection / delivery request transmission means for specifying a scheduled return date and transmitting a collection / delivery request for a book to a delivery company with reference to a storage device for storing the lending registration and a storage device for storing a notification that the book has been lent When,
A book lending system comprising: a registration deletion unit that receives a notification that the book has been returned and deletes the registration of the lending request from the storage device.   2. The book lending system according to claim 1, wherein the delivery request transmitting unit transmits a mail for lending date confirmation to the user terminal prior to transmitting the delivery request.   The book lending system according to claim 2, wherein the collection / delivery request transmission unit transmits an e-mail for confirming a return date to the user terminal prior to transmission of the collection / delivery request. In a book lending management method comprising a server connected to a user terminal and a delivery company terminal via a network and managing lending and returning of library books,
The server receives a lending request specifying a book name, a scheduled lending date, and a scheduled return date from the user terminal, and determines whether or not lending periods overlap with reference to a storage device that stores the already registered lending request And steps to
If the determination step determines that there is no duplication, the server registers the received loan request;
The server transmits a book delivery request to a delivery company by designating a scheduled loan date based on the registered loan request;
The server refers to the storage device that stores the lending registration and the storage device that stores the notification that the book lending has been completed, and sends a book collection / delivery request to the delivery company with a scheduled return date. Steps,
Receiving a notification that the return of the book is completed, and deleting the registration of the loan request from the storage device.   5. The book lending method according to claim 4, wherein, in the delivery request sending step, a mail for checking a lending date is sent to the user terminal prior to sending the delivery request.   The book lending method according to claim 5, wherein, in the collection / delivery request step, a mail for return date confirmation is transmitted to the user terminal prior to transmission of the collection / delivery request. A program for a library lending management system, which is connected to a user terminal and a delivery company terminal via a network and includes a computer for managing lending and returning of library books,
The server receives a lending request specifying a book name, a scheduled lending date, and a scheduled return date from the user terminal, and determines whether or not lending periods overlap with reference to a storage device that stores the already registered lending request And steps to
If the determination step determines that there is no duplication, the server registers the received loan request;
The server transmits a book delivery request to a delivery company by designating a scheduled loan date based on the registered loan request;
The server refers to the storage device that stores the lending registration and the storage device that stores the notification that the book has been lent, and sends a book collection / delivery request to the delivery company with a scheduled return date. Steps,
A program for receiving a notification that the book has been returned and deleting the registration of the lending request from the storage device;

Images