When systems for convenience screws up

Lately, I have become acutely aware of certain incidents at a local tertiary institution's library. Amazingly at this world class library(Names are left out to protect the guilty :P), with all the IT and high-tech systems, they are unable to track some books that have been dropped into their book drops.

Technically speaking there are 101 things that can go wrong when a book is dropped into a book drop. Obviously a book drop is for the user's convenience, but imagine what happens when a book you have returned is marked as lost.....

What happens when the lifts in a building breaks down every other day? What happens if the automatic glass doors only detect you and opens 9 of 10 times when u walk towards it? This really highlights a crucial aspect for any system that aims to make activities in our daily lives convenience, it has to be reliable...... and when it screws up, there had better be proper procedures to follow and people who have sufficient brains or responsibility to take the required actions.

Although having to take unjust responsibility for a missing book is not as painful as slamming your face into a glass door, its definitely worth the inconvenience of by-passing the whole book drop system. This is often made more so by individuals who operate that system and couldn't care less that its causing the end users problems..... =>picture a security guard that finds his daily entertainment by guessing who is the next person to walk into the defective glass door