So, I have a couple of things for today that came out of work. The first, technically, is something I learned *yesterday,* tho' in my defense I didn't really have time to peruse their web site 'til today. I received very late notice that a company called Bibliotheca was bringing a van to demo their RFID system at one of the local libraries. Soooo, having read a number of blurbs on the technology of late and being a bit concerned about how it could be used-- or abused-- I decided to motor over and take a look. Well, now. I have to say, RFID as they've envisioned and implemented it is really darn cool. It's not perfect-- it is still very much a developing technology-- but wow, the things it can do already!
On the negative side: it's still rather pricey (about 50 cents a tag, right now). The range of the tags they've developed is fairly short (3' optimum, about 6' max), and anything metal can block the signal (which has its good and bad points: short range and easy blocking make it bad for security, but very good for personal privacy). There's not really a library standard as yet, so it's uncertain if their tags would work with another company's system, or vice versa. And the tags themselves are a little big-- about the size of a business card, and so too large to fit down the spine of a book (which is generally the best place to stick a security tag, because it's very hard to remove from there). And while they're flexible, the tags could be ripped or peeled off pretty easily, as they are-- especially the (otherwise really smart) design they have for CDs and DVDs. And if the "antenna" part gets ripped from the "chip" part-- that's pretty much it. You could be inches from it, and it probably wouldn't be able to read the chip.
But on the up side... oh, the possibilities for inventory, which is really what it was developed for in the first place! The tags have room for 512 bytes of data-- so, say, a barcode, and an ISBN, maybe a call # and abbreviated title/author.... honestly, my personal inclination would be to put only what's needed on the tag, and just link it to the system (again, privacy issues). Using RFID, you can self-checkout, you can checkin/out a pile of, say, 10" worth of books simultaneously. And they considered that not everyone would have RFID-- even the self-checkout station is designed with a built-in barcode scanner, so that if some of your materials aren't RFID tagged they can still be checked out in the same transaction. There are linked tags, so if you have, say, a book-on-tape case containing a dozen individual tapes, each tape could be tagged and linked to a master tag so that in one pass you could check it out *and* make sure that all the pieces were accounted for-- without even opening the box! You can automate a bookdrop to check in materials automatically, scan the tags and route books to specific drop bins-- no more sorting, it does it for you! With the very nicely-designed handheld unit (battery pack is slung over the shoulder, so the wand itself is VERY light), you can run the reader (slowly, but they're working on that) along a row of books and get a list of what's on the shelf... or you can set it to beep when it encounters a book out of place, or when it encounters a particular title you're looking for. Shelf-reading would be so ridiculously easy with this system in place. And my favorite-- if someone walks out with a book that wasn't checked out, the gate alarm will go off, *and* send a message to the staff computers telling them *which* book is walking out the door.
Man, I'm such a geek... for all its downsides, though, this is definitely a system worth getting excited about. Not something we could put in right away, of course-- for that matter, I'd like to see them work a few more of the kinks out-- but... maybe Someday in a few years. ;)
As for my other new thing... nowhere near as exciting (at least, not for me), but interesting, I thought. I came across a new book on the American Civil War entitled Donnybrook: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861 (which, by the by, was quite well reviewed-- worth checking out, I think, if you have any interest in the field). Now, I know what the term donnybrook *means.* But it struck me yet again how strange a word it is... it doesn't seem to have much to do with the concept of fighting, etymologically. So I looked it up... as it turns out, it's a commemorative word-- the word was coined for a fair outside of Dublin that had more than its share of, well, donnybrooks.
Posted by gris at September 16, 2004 11:56 PMNot to be the complete negative commentator here, but you do realize that in addition to the library being able to easily check you out, it also means that anyone who comes within 3 feet of you can find out what you are reading (and actually further away with better antennas).
So, an interested party could sit in your parking lot and find out what everyone is reading. Or, you could be walking in the mall with your book, and a sign in a store lights up saying "You like Tolstoy! We have Babushka for sale today!"
The problem with RFID is that you can't turn it off (at least not temporarily a 5 second burst in a microwave will kill it).
That was one of my primary concerns with it, as a privacy issue. But... unless I misunderstood him, no, 6' is the maximum possible range these tags could be "read" at, because the length of antenna on the tag-end puts a top limit on its range-- also why, if the antenna part of the tag gets ripped off, you can't read it at all. (I'm going to have to read through that again... my pooter at home was s l o w last night, and I got frustrated trying to read through the pages 'cause they kept not loading.)
And it wouldn't necessarily be that easy for an interested party to find that out-- as I mentioned, there's room for 512 bytes of data on the tag, but if all we put on there was the library's internal barcoding, one would have to be hooked in to the library's network in order to know what the numbers meant. Take it to the mall, and you've got an even harder time being "read"-- the reader doesn't have any way of knowing where those tags come from. And as there's no standard, there's not even any certainty they *could* read the tags. And while, no, the library tags aren't easy to destroy (that's deliberate, we don't want to be replacing them constantly), but the signal is very easily blocked. Lead-lined purses (that's what thieves at the local outlet mall use). Tin foil. Those nifty little gray bags you get your EZPass in.
As far as being able to read the RFID tags from, say, another store... that remains to be seen. The tags they use there are, for lack of a better term, pretty cheap. They *can* be destroyed with a little zap of electricity, which is what they do when they disable the tag. They're not disabling, they're destroying. A clerk might mess up the process, but chances are good that no one would be able to read that tag again, once you've made your purchase. (If you shoplift, well, that's another story, isn't it?)
I was deeply concerned about how much of a privacy intrusion these tags would be before I went to the demo. A number of the questions I asked the rep were aimed specifically to that point. I admit, I'm considerably less worried about it now. That's not to say that the technology couldn't "improve" to make it easier to read the tags from a distance, but frankly, that's not what *libraries* want-- and bear in mind, these tags are designed to a specific purpose. Librarians are as much concerned with the privacy issues as the security ones, and the companies who make these tags have been responding favorably to those concerns, to my mind.
Posted by: Gris at September 17, 2004 09:30 AM