I'm not sure I explained it well then. I'm a librarian though, and I'm biased towards having the saved labor. All books and patrons in one database, which allows quick cataloging, book loans between institutions, scanning a barcode vrs illegible handwriting, tracking, weeding statistics...all at a button press. Some of those processes used to take weeks, with a high error rate. Now that I think about it, how can you *not* see a need for a database when dealing with tens of thousands of cataloged books?

Inventory, late-return spreadsheets, a central database over an entire district, tracking moving children and their withdrawn books. And that’s just from the top of my head. Computerizing the library is a huge, huge positive step forward.