BookCourier
Library-to-home delivery with real-time tracking and invoicing.
Role
Full-stack Developer
Duration
3 weeks
Year
2025
RBAC
3 user roles
Real-time
Order tracking
The Problem
Public libraries in Bangladesh face a real access problem. Most of their potential users - students, researchers, working professionals - cannot visit during opening hours. The books sit on shelves, unused.
Home delivery solves this. But managing orders, tracking deliveries, and handling returns across hundreds of users requires infrastructure that most libraries don't have.
BookCourier was built to provide exactly that infrastructure.
What I Built
A complete library-to-home delivery platform - three user roles, a full catalogue with search and filtering, end-to-end order management, and real-time status tracking.
Role-based access control
Three distinct roles built with Axios interceptors and protected route logic:
- Users - browse catalogue, place orders, track deliveries, manage their account
- Librarians - manage the catalogue, process orders, update delivery status
- Admins - full platform oversight, user management, reporting
Every route checks role before rendering.
Every API call checks role before executing.
Catalogue with smart search
Debounced search that fires as the user types - no button press needed, no full page reload. Multi-parameter sorting (title, author, availability, date added) and server-side pagination for large collections.
Order management
A complete checkout flow with validation - users select books, confirm their delivery address, and receive an invoice. Librarians process the order and update status in real time. Users track their delivery from dispatch to door.
Optimistic UI
Dashboard updates reflect immediately on interaction - before the server confirms. Skeleton loaders handle the brief loading states. The experience feels instant because it is designed to feel instant.
Key Decisions
MongoDB for the catalogue.Book data - titles, authors, genres, availability, metadata - is document-shaped. MongoDB's flexible schema handles catalogue variations cleanly without migrations.
Firebase Auth for identity. Reliable, scalable, zero-maintenance authentication. Social login available if needed. Focus stays on the product, not the auth infrastructure.
Optimistic updates everywhere. In a delivery tracking context, perceived speed matters. Every status change updates the UI before waiting for the server response.
The Result
BookCourier demonstrates full MERN stack capability with a real-world logistics use case. The RBAC architecture, debounced search, and optimistic UI patterns are directly applicable to any platform product with multiple user types and real-time data.