Library Management
Run the whole library — catalogue, acquisitions, issue desk, holds and fines — inside the school system that already knows every reader.
What this module bills
- Catalogued book copies₦0.05 per copy/day · billed daily
What this module is
A school library is usually run on a spreadsheet, a stamped card, or a standalone system that knows nothing about the school around it. The result is familiar: nobody can say what is on loan, overdue books are chased by memory, and the librarian re-types the student roll every September.
The Library module puts circulation on the same record as everything else. Every student and staff member is already a potential borrower — no import, no separate account, no parallel roster to maintain. When a student leaves, their borrowing record leaves with them; when a new intake arrives, they can borrow the same day. The third kind of reader a real school library has — the alumnus, the parent, the visiting researcher — gets a register of their own, because they have no other record in the school to hang a loan on.
The module divides into ten surfaces for the librarian: an overview, the catalogue (with its category vocabulary beside it), the acquisitions register (with its suppliers), circulation, holds, fines and charges, external borrowers, membership tiers, a clearance register of who owes the library right now, and analytics. Teachers, pupils and their families get scoped views of the same data — including, since 2026-08-30, a page each that simply says what they owe. What follows walks each role through the screens they actually use.
What you get
One catalogue, always searchable
Titles and physical copies are tracked separately, so three copies of one book behave correctly: two on loan, one on the shelf, and the catalogue says so.
Overdues chase themselves
Loans carry due dates and fines accrue against the borrower automatically. The librarian reads a list instead of reconstructing one.
No separate membership roll
Borrowers are the school’s existing students and staff. Enrolment changes flow through; there is no second roster to reconcile.
Holds that resolve themselves
Popular titles get a priority queue, so the next reader is determined the moment a copy comes back rather than by who asks first.
Evidence for the book budget
Usage by title, subject and member turns an acquisitions request from a hunch into a number — and the acquisitions register beside it says what was actually spent, with whom, and on what.
A purchase is a record, not four columns on a title
One intake, with lines against the titles it brought in. A restock is a second acquisition rather than an edit to the first — which is what stopped the second delivery from erasing the first out of the finance ledger.
The desk works at scanner speed
One barcode lookup answers both directions: scan a copy and the system knows whether it is going out or coming back, whose loan it is, and who is next in its queue.
Money owed can actually be settled
Fines and lost-item charges are settled or waived at the desk, or read by the borrower on their own “What I Owe” page — a pupil, a teacher and an outsider all see the same figure the librarian does.
Students can see their own account
What they have, when it is due, where they sit in a hold queue — which removes most of the traffic at the issue desk.
How Library Management actually works
The screens below are the real application, running live on this page with sample school data — not screenshots. Each one is the same screen your team would use.
Librarian / School Admin
The librarian runs the module day to day. These nine screens are the whole job: know the state of the library, keep the catalogue honest, record what was bought, work the issue desk, manage the queue, collect what is owed, look after the readers who are not on the roll, set the borrowing rules, and justify next year’s budget.
Start on the overview
The landing screen answers the questions a librarian is asked without warning: how big is the collection, what is out, what is late, and what do we owe.
Keep the catalogue honest
The catalogue is the register of what the library owns. It models titles and their individual copies separately, which is what makes multi-copy availability work.
Record what the library bought
Acquisitions is its own register because it answers a different question for a different reader: the catalogue is “what do we have and where is it?” for a librarian at a shelf; this is “what did we spend, and with whom?” for whoever signs the book budget.
Work the issue desk
Circulation is the daily loop — issue a book, take one back, deal with what is late. This is the screen the librarian keeps open.
Manage the queue for popular titles
When every copy of a set text is out, the question is who gets it next. Holds answer that with a priority-ordered queue instead of whoever happens to ask.
Collect what is owed
Fines and lost-item charges used to be a number on the overview with no way to act on it. They are now a register with two verbs: settle it, or waive it with a reason on the record.
The readers who are not on the roll
A school library lends to people the school has no other record of — an alumnus, a parent, a visiting researcher. They get their own register, because there is nothing else in the system to hang their loan on.
Who owes the library right now
Clearance answers the question the module could not answer before it existed: not “who is leaving and owes us”, but “who owes us”, today, whether or not anybody is going anywhere.
Set borrowing rules once
Every pupil and every staff member is already a library member — there is nothing to enrol. What a school actually decides is what each of them may borrow, and that lives here as a tier.
Make the case for the budget
The analytics screen turns a term of circulation into the evidence a head teacher will act on.
Ready to run your school on this?
Every screen in “Librarian / School Admin” is the live product, not a mockup. Create your school account, or have us walk you through it on a call.
Teachers & other staff
Teachers do not run the library, but they depend on it — for reading lists, for set texts, and as borrowers themselves. Their view is deliberately read-only over the collection, plus full control of their own account.
See the state of the shelves
A teacher planning a topic needs to know what the library holds and what is currently out. That is the whole of this screen — no administrative controls to wade through.
Build a reading list
Search the full catalogue by subject and media type to assemble a classroom list, with real availability attached rather than a guess.
Track their own borrowing
Staff see their current loans, due dates and history without walking to the issue desk to ask.
Reserve ahead of a topic
A teacher can place holds on titles weeks before a unit starts and see exactly where each request sits in the queue — so the books arrive when the lesson does.
What they owe, without asking
Until 2026-08-30 nobody could see what they owed the library except the librarian. A member of staff now reads their own charges — what for, how much, and whether it has been settled — on their own page.
See this on your own school’s data.
Every screen in “Teachers & other staff” is the live product, not a mockup. Create your school account, or have us walk you through it on a call.
Students
Most library friction is students not knowing what they have, when it is due, or whether a book is available. The student portal answers all three, which is why it removes so much traffic from the issue desk.
Their own library home
Students land on what is theirs — books currently on loan, when each is due, and suggestions for what to read next.
Browse and reserve, any time
The whole catalogue is searchable from the student portal, with live availability and the ability to place a hold. The library is effectively open outside library hours.
Know what is due, and renew it
Every book a pupil holds, with due dates and how many renewals are left on each. They renew from here rather than queuing at the desk to ask — and the renewal count is the one their own tier actually grants, not the default for pupils in general.
Track the queue
Reserved titles with queue position, so a student knows whether their next read is days or weeks away.
What they owe
A pupil’s own charges — an overdue fine, a lost copy — with what each is for and whether it has been settled. The same figure the librarian is looking at, which makes a disputed balance a much shorter conversation.
Set this up for your team.
Every screen in “Students” is the live product, not a mockup. Create your school account, or have us walk you through it on a call.
Parents & guardians
Parents do not run the library and get no separate library screen. What they need is visibility: is my child reading, and is anything overdue. That sits on the ward page, next to attendance, results and fees — one place per child rather than a login per module.
See a child’s library standing on the ward page
A ward’s active loans, overdue books and holds appear on their page alongside everything else the school tracks — so a parent spots an overdue book without a separate app or a note home.
Ready to run your school on this?
Every screen in “Parents & guardians” is the live product, not a mockup. Create your school account, or have us walk you through it on a call.
How it connects to the rest of the platform
Students and staff come from the base platform
Borrowers are the school’s existing people records. Admissions, transfers and leavers flow straight through — there is no library membership list to maintain separately.
Roles and permissions are the school’s own
What a librarian, teacher or student can see in the library is governed by the same access control as the rest of the platform, not a second set of library logins.
Fines and book spend both meet the finance ledgerrequires Finance
Where School Fees & Finance is switched on, library fines sit alongside the rest of a family’s account rather than in a separate cash tin — and a confirmed purchase posts as an expense in the same ledger the bursary reads, dated to the day the books arrived.
A closed month closes the library toorequires Finance
Finance’s accounting periods bound where a posting may land, and the acquisition form asks before it accepts a date — so a librarian dating an invoice into a reported month is told while the field still has focus, not by a refusal after pressing Confirm. They hold no finance permissions to be told this; the check is gated on its own action.
Leaving is one queue, not seven
The library’s clearance register is this module’s slice of a school-wide exit process. An outstanding loan holds a leaver’s clearance open, the librarian signs their own line off, and nobody needs student-module powers to do it.
An existing collection arrives by spreadsheet
Titles, physical copies and historical acquisitions each have an import sheet. Books and copies never touch finance; money arrives on the acquisitions sheet, and every imported row lands as a draft for somebody to read before it posts.
Common questions
Do we have to import our student list into the library?+
No. Every student and staff member on the platform is already a potential borrower. There is no separate membership import, and no annual re-import when the roll changes.
Can it handle multiple copies of the same book?+
Yes — titles and physical copies are modelled separately. Each copy has its own location and loan state, so availability for a title is accurate when some copies are out and others are not.
What happens to a student’s loans when they leave?+
Their borrowing record stays attached to their student record, so outstanding loans and fines remain visible and attributable rather than disappearing with the account.
Can students see the catalogue from home?+
Yes. The catalogue, their loans, their holds and what they owe are all in the student portal, which is available wherever they can sign in. They can renew a loan from there too, within whatever their membership tier allows.
Can we lend to people who are not students or staff?+
Yes. External borrowers — alumni, parents, visiting researchers — have their own register, their own membership tier and their own expiry date, and they borrow through the same issue desk as everyone else.
Does the issue desk work with a barcode scanner?+
Yes. A scanner types the barcode and presses Enter; one lookup returns the copy, whatever loan it is on and whoever is next in its queue, so the same gesture issues a book or takes it back depending on what the copy’s own state says.
How do we load a library we already have?+
By spreadsheet, in three sheets: titles, physical copies, and — separately — the acquisitions that describe what they cost. Books and copies deliberately touch no money at all, and historical purchases are recorded as “opening stock”, which never posts to finance. Loading four thousand titles a school bought over twenty years must not produce four thousand backdated expenses in this year’s accounts.
What happens if we buy more copies of a book we already own?+
You record a second acquisition. It used to be an edit to the title itself, which the finance reconciliation read as a correction — so logging the second delivery posted a credit that reversed the first purchase out of the ledger. An acquisition is now a record of one intake, and a restock is simply another one.
Can library fines be paid?+
Yes. A charge is settled at the desk or waived with a reason on the record, and where School Fees & Finance is running it reaches the family account. Every borrower — pupil, staff member or outsider — can also read what they owe on their own page.
Other operations modules
Run your whole school on one connected platform
Start with the base package, switch on the modules you need, and give every parent, student and staff member a single place to log in.