Development and evaluation of android-based library stocktaking application using NFC Technology: a case study in Bina Nusantara University

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop and evaluate a mobile application to facilitate stocktaking in libraries implementing radio frequency identification. The case of Bina Nusantara University’s library is used in this study. In this kind of library, near field communication (NFC) tags are placed in the book for getting book information, borrowing or returning and theft prevention, so the application. Stocktaking is an important process to be performed periodically to monitor and maintain the quality of collections and to make these collections easily accessible for library users. However, stocktaking in libraries takes too much effort and needs to be more efficient. Design/methodology/approach The design of the mobile application using entity relationship diagram (ERD) includes a diagram and flowchart. An evaluation is done by comparing the stocktaking effort of the latest semester and the previous semester. In the latest semester, the stocktaking is done by a hybrid of the proposed mobile application and a legacy desktop application, whereas the stocktaking of the previous semester is done only using the legacy desktop application. Findings Evaluation of the usage of this mobile stocktaking application is 43 per cent more efficient compared to an older desktop application. Originality/value The authors report the development of Android-based mobile stocktaking application by using Android’s NFC feature and evaluate it in a real environment.