The Tk 1.11 crore project, aimed at computerising the library data systems and book exchange, was initiated in January 1998 with a fund from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

After over five years of the initiative, Vice-chancellor Prof SMA Faiz inaugurated the programme on March 16 of last year without completion of the project.

Library authorities have blamed the teachers, students and researchers for non-cooperation in making the borrower's ID card, which is the first element to make the project successful.

"We have issued 10 notices so far to every department, institution and other concerns informing them of the project and how to make borrowers ID cards. But we have not received satisfactory responses from them," said Khandaker Fazlur Rahman, acting DU librarian (administration), who is also the member-secretary of the project's executive committee, while talking to The Daily Star.

"To date, only 1000 have got their ID cards. Of them, 800 are teachers, " he added.

The automation of the library input system would help about 32000 students, over 1500 teachers and around 1000 researches to have access to any books in a few seconds, which under the manual cataloguing system, takes up to two hours in the largest library of the country, said sources connected to the automation project.

Under the project, the users would need digitised borrower's identity card to find books at the library.

After inserting the ID card into a computerised device, the users would be able to see the catalogue on the screen at the library counter.

But most of the students are still in the dark about the project, said a source, adding that they do not know the benefit of the system.

While talking to this correspondent, a number of students said they saw notices on boards but did not show interest to avoid hassles.

Some officials of the library said departments and institutes should encourage their students to get the ID cards.

The authorities also could not complete other preparations for the project such as transplanting barcode level of books containing an accession number and data entry for the main server.

To date, barcode levels have been transplanted to only 130000 books out of total 600000 books at two libraries, said Syeda Farida Parvin, acting librarian (planning and development).

She said data entry of books written in Bangla is not possible with the existing software.

VC Prof Faiz expressed his surprise that students and many teachers are not showing interest in getting the ID cards despite repeated notices from the library authorities.

"Library authorities will face problem if they do not cooperate. I'll discuss the issue in meeting with deans' committee and provosts' committee to find a way out of the problem," he added.