RFID Asia :: Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Community in Asia


        

Five Reasons for RFID in Your Library

 

Friday, January 15, 2010
Adi Tedjasaputra.
by Adi Tedjasaputra

You may have heard some reasons not to have RFID in your library. The most popular reasons not to have RFID usually evolve around the issues of financial investment and return, risk and privacy. If there are more, you may want to tweet me :-)
Here are five reasons why you should consider RFID in your library.


1. Easy Tagging
One of the most daunting experience in introducing RFID system in a library is tagging. The possibility of tagging millions of collections manually by hand is unimaginable. Fortunately, there have been several working solutions for this issue, from the one that tackles the issue of migration from barcode system to full-fledge RFID implementation to the one with automatic tagging and decoding. The Yarra Plenty Regional Library in Australia, for example, was able to tag the whole collections within six months. In the past, there was also an issue of tagging multimedia collections, such as optical discs, as experienced by the National Library Board Singapore. However, it is no longer a problem with the newest RFID technology. You Just have to make sure that you do not buy an old RFID technology, which has a severe readability problem with special type of collections, such as DVDs and CDs.

2. Automated Sorting
Once a library collection is dropped at a specific place, the collection will be automatically scanned by one or more RFID readers. The system will then send a unique identification data read from the returned collection to the backend system in miliseconds and subsequently produce an acknowledgement of returned collection. Either using conveyor belt or any other means, the collection can later be transported to another spot for a sorting process. Using RFID technology, unsupervised automatic sorting is also possible. Watch the following video illustrating the sorting process at Seattle Public Library.



3. Managing Collections and Storage
Most libraries organise their collections using Dewey Decimal Classification system. When librarians put collections away, they need to put them in a specific place according to Dewey Decimal Classification system. The idea of having the classification system is to have a unique location where they can locate each collection easily. While the classification system is very helpful to locate the collections when they are in the right spot everytime, in daily practice, the collections may not be in the place where they are supposed to be. Patrons who are not familiar with the classification system may take a collection away from a shelf and return it in an unknown spot somewhere else, for example. Librarians need to gather the collections which are scattered in different places and put them back in their right location. Thanks to RFID, it is now possible for librarians and patrons to locate and return the collections in the right place where they belong effectively and efficiently.

4. Secure and Automated Reservation and Borrowing
In library patron's use cases, reservation and borrowing are the most useful features of Integrated RFID Library Management System. The vision of 24/7 library is already possible with the use of RFID technology. No more dispute on whether a patron returns a collection in time or late. No more hassle of returning during library opening hours. Beyond a single library, RFID can provide real time information when interlibrary loan collections arrive or leave a specific library.

5. Interactive Information, Help and Guide
A number of museums in Europe, America and Northern Asia have started to implement trials on RFID technology to enhance the experience of their visitors. The Museum of Natural History in Aarhus, Denmark has used RFID to enable real time information delivery for an exhibition. In The Osaka Science Museum, Japan, researchers have tried to use the information obtained from RFID bracelets worn by museum visitors for directing some robots to guide them around several exhibits. The Tech Museum of Innovation in California, USA, has offered students visiting the museum to personalize their visiting experience with RFID wristbands. Can a similar system be implemented for a library? The answer is: Yes, it can. Libraries around the world can enhance and empower their visitors and patrons with RFID technology.

So what if you could deploy the Integrated RFID Library Management System in less than a year? Will the benefits of having more efficient library system with RFID in place outweigh the investment? Then, you will still ask even more difficult questions, such as: How much does it cost?

You can read all about them in the Cost Benefit Analysis of Integrated RFID Library Management System that will be published at the end of this year.

The writer is the Founder of RFID Asia - The Prominent RFID Community in Asia.

Labels: , , , ,

 


RFID Asia on Facebook

 

RFID Asia Journals




QR Code

   QR Code of RFID Asia.