WEB BASED BOOK ARCHIVE SYSTEM BY HAMPO, JOHNPAUL A.C.

ABSTRACT

Where there is no archive civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Knowledge is on the decrease due to the unpleasant nature of manual archive among other reasons. The antidote to this phenomenon is a digitalized good record keeping. Good record-keeping is the breath of history. Any entity without a history is liken to a plant without a root. The digitalization process of human kick not away the record keeping, rather it didn’t only imbedded it but also enhanced record keeping digitally so that record kept are properly preserved and easily accessed. The re-occurrence of issues though in different dimension can be solved with the aid of archive because roots of similarities to the issue can be seen in an archive. Hence, a this research system helps to automate the manual archive with books as the only content, and it is designed to easily locate any archive that is sought for by a user.  The concept of digital library and digital diary are employed into this research and the Integrated Development Environments used are Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 using ASP.net alongside HTML tags, VB.net as its programming language and Microsoft SQL Management Studio 2008 for the backend (database work). Structured Analysis and Design Technique (SADT) and Rapid Application Development (RAD) are used as methodology.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION

An accumulation of historical records (these days, not only historical record but knowledge boosting resources) or the place where these records are kept is termed an archive. The content of archive basically is the primary source documents that have been accumulated over the course of an individual’s or organization’s life cycle. These are kept to show the function, importance and work of such a person or organization. Professionally, archivists (a person who work in an archive) and historians (one who read historian and/or a seeker and custodian of history and historical) generally understands archive to be records that have been naturally and necessary generated as a result of some activities which include legal, commercial, administrative or social.

In general, archives consist of records that have been selected for permanent or long term preservation on grounds of their enduring importance which may be cultural, historical or evidentiary. By professionalism, archives have been metaphorically defined as “the secretion of an organism”, rather than those that have been consciously written or created to communicate a particular message to posterity. Archive records are normally unpublished (not that it is an offence to publish them) and almost always unique, unlike books or magazine for which many identical copies exist. Hence places that are used as archive are quite distinct from places used as library in regards to their functions and organization. Despite their differences, a library at times has a section for archival collections.

At a glance, an archivist is one who works in an archive while the study as well as the practice of organizing, preserving and providing access to information and materials in archival science. As aforesaid, the physical place where archive records are kept is also referred to as archive but to avoid misunderstanding, it is called archive repository. When record and archiving professionals used the word ‘archive’ they are referring to the permanent storage of records, not merely their removal from current usage.

Most societies and people place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture and heritage. Without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form. The Archive's mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet archive for researchers, historians, and scholars. These artifacts though in manual form will be digitalized into different forms like images, audios and videos. Some important researches are also content of a digitalized archive.

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The simplicity brought to human life through the adventure of computer and advance technology cannot be ignored. Computers are virtually in every field of human life. They simplify, secure and perform faster processing with accuracy, speed and confidentiality. From mere word processing, computer technology has over the year evolved to be seen in human so much; from waking to sleeping. “From sleeping and eating to exercise and travelling, technologies now allow us to track and analyze every detail of our lives. The presence of advance computing technology and developed minds in the technological field of life, has almost digitalized or automated everything”, Said Hampo, J.A.C. (2012).

Recordkeeping or archiving is indirectly as old as human, hence Filip Boudrez et al (2005) reports that “When man invented writing he also invented archives. This made it possible for him to leave behind traces of his experiences, discoveries, fears and inventions. Philosophy, religion, art and science made strides through the sharing of acquired knowledge written on tablets, on parchment or in books. The invention of printing greatly accelerated this evolution by allowing the diffusion of ideas within a group of elites and later to a population ever hungrier for knowledge”.

Archive serves as the cornerstone of knowledge; hence the invention of archive promoted knowledge but was limited due to geographical and time factors. Though these factors exist, increasingly vast amount of knowledge passed from one generation to another when archive was invented. Thus the initial problem on how to conserve knowledgeable resources was overcame only with a new problem on how to manage, sort and use the information stored in their increasingly gigantic houses.

Human in response to this new problem associated with manual archive systems, invented electronic knowledge management. Human inventing electronic management system was as a result of progress made in the field of computer and communication thereby enabling conservation, management and usage of mammoth quantities of data being handled electronically.

Can an entity do without an archive? Everyone, organizations and societies in some ways have archives even without them knowing. As a person your books of early age (secondary/high schools) are still available. As an organization, your start up forms, proposals and contract letters are still kept in the organization. Finally, as a society, the names of the founding fathers, their works and many others are still held or reserved securely. Hence the answer to the above question is NO!

There is an exponential increase in the amount of information and knowledgeable resources circulating despite the intense situations around man. Electronic archiving has become crucial and entails the identification of appropriate solutions to related technical problems.

A web based book archive system is a form of an electronic archive system with the distinction on what it archives – which are books only. This archive system keep tract of book which can include journals, publications and articles. The users of this system can upload as well as download an archive but every uploaded archive goes through editorial board for proper scrutiny and verification before it will be uploaded for other users to see. Electronic archive system varies by purpose; some archives books, others media, email conversation and artifacts as the case might be. 

An archive system can be seen at a large frames as a management system as well as an information system. A system is simply a combination of hardware, software, rules, people and procedures, all in consonance of achieving a common goal. Computer’s efficiency speed, accuracy, reliability, cost, among others has given it an edge above the manual systems of which web base archive system is not excluded. Awareness in people concerning the use of computers in planning areas of management and business activities has increased.

1.2     STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

There was a shift in problem due to the adventure of manual archive systems. Before the coming of manual archive systems, people were concerned on how to properly keep intellectual resources (recordkeeping) but the manual archives also brought their own issues. Information and intellectual resources was on the increase, hence the conservation and preservation became issue of the past but how to manage, sort and use such bulky archives.

Intellectual properties, culture, artifacts and societal heritage are of utmost importance and of great need to be made easily accessible. Hence this research work as a web based system will defeat the territorial barriers. Other problems with the manual archives are:

·        Waste of time to search for an archive

·        Limitation in access-time as it is not round the clock all day (not always available)

·        Difficulty to access the archive as a result as human factor (corruption)

·        Stress encountered by both the users and the staff

·        Improper referencing and citation.

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

          The objectives of this research are as follows:

1.     To review related literatures as well as electronic archive systems.

2.     To design a web based book archive system. Active Server Pages.net (ASP.net), Visual Basic.net (VB.net) and Structured Query Language (SQL) through these Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) – MS visual studio 2010 and MS management server studio 2008 as its front end and back end respectively are used. Issues that will be addressed by the proposed system include

·        Proper management of archives

·        Quick search of archives

·        Human negative factors like bribing and transfer of emotions

·        Constant availability

·        Speedy access

3.     To build a module to enable users also contribute to the archive via uploading.

1.4     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The factors (delay and others aforementioned) associated with the  manual system has discourage intended users of archive to a very large extent, thereby decreasing knowledge either directly or indirectly as well as difficulty to properly research. Knowing the importance of history to human and archive being the cornerstone of knowledge, archives must be properly managed and easily accessible.  Hence, to aid human to easily access knowledge and history, this research has been chosen.

1.5     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This research project deals with the development of a web based archive system that will enable the sorting, categorizing and retrieval (downloading) of e-books from various individuals (users). Uploading privilege is also given to the users, but their upload will be assessed before making it accessible. This research work does not cover the accessing of e-books out the sphere of those uploaded.

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