The existing history of this problem has been with the specification community [Wing88].
On-line library systems like the one described above have been envisioned since at least the 1960s, when the US Library of Congress embarked on its MARC project. The concise statement of the the problem above is due to Kemmerer, who first published this problem as a specification exercise in [Kemmerer 85]. A variant of Kemmerer's problem statement was posed for the Fourth International Workshop on Software Specification and Design in 1986, and twelve of the published papers considered it. Wing summarizes their specifications in [Wing 88]. The workshop specification made some changesfrom the specification, such as limiting transaction 1 to staff users as well. (Presumably they would do it on the behalf of ordinary borrowers.)
Updated Halloween 95 by
Mary Shaw
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