RFID Wand / Magic Wand Comparison

We are currently testing a magic wand (aka RFID wand) from FE Technologies. I have also tested the one from 3M and seen one from Bibliotheca and one from QLS (which was made by a Scandinavian company whose name I cannot remember).

It is interesting how the different companies have designed their magic wands.

Bibliotheca Wireless Inventory Wand
Bibliotheca have had their wand around for a while and you can see that in the design. Bibliotheca's design incorporates a giant battery pack which has a strap so that you can carry it like a handbag (if your handbag was filled with bricks). It then has a funky little PDA containing the software and a paddle that you wave at the books to detect it. Depending on which way you hold the paddle determines how accurate the scan will be, using the flat side gives you a wider scan, the sharp side (or even the point) gives you a more detailed scan.
Pros: PDA means that it could easily be installed on any kind of wireless computer device (or a laptop if it comes down to it). The software is easily updated by docking the PDA. Also, the wand is quite long which means you don't have to bend down to reach books on the bottom shelf or reach high to get ones at the top, you just wave it like a light saber.
Cons: Big-arse heavy bulky battery pack.
(note: I didn't actually get to use this as Bibliotheca were not currently supporting my tag format, the usability of the program did seem quite logical though...even if it was in German due to being the test model)

3M Handheld Inventory Tracker /Digital Library Assistant
This was the first RFID wand I had used and I was suitably impressed at the time. It is compact, light, and quite easy to use. It is an all-in-one unit that does not need any external battery support or even an external computing device (ie a PDA). You install a program onto a computer, upload a file of the items you wish to find to that location, it then pulls the items into the RFID wand and away you go. The file format is simple, comma seperated file with 4 options. First one was the barcode. Third was the call number. Fourth was the title. The second allowed you to enter something 'secondary', ie, the word missing if you wanted the device to tell you that the item went 'beep' because it was missing. It was a while ago now, but I do remember it being easy.
Pros: Lightweight. Easy to use, the screen was easily visible.
Cons: The size meant that you had to bend to do books on lower shelves and reach up to do higher ones. Battery life wasn't great (although you could have multiple batteries and they were very easy to change).

FE Technologies Portable Scanning Unit
This is my most recent device for testing and is quite new to FE, I don't know if they've actually sold any off yet and I know that they are very interested in the results of my testing to find out how to improve the unit. The unit itself is a swish looking black box with a screen. Attached to this box is an RFID antenna that looks like a handle with a squared off piece of metal attached. The box is operated by means of a special pen (which retails at $75 so I warned all of my staff that they'd better not lose it). The device itself contains a computer, battery and small RFID reader inside the black box (I asked). It can be set to run through a wireless network and will automatically download the update files that you ask it to. This was the only one of the units which I have seen which will actually update the status of items that it wands (if you want it to). For example, I could use this unit to change the security status of my DVDs to 'secure' if I was so inclined. It also works very fast, a heap faster than the 3M one did.
It operates in an interesting way. It has a dump file of all of the LMS items in it and uploads updates to the device overnight. When it scans items, it checks this dump file to see if the item is included and, if we wanted it to, it checks to see if the item is within a certain call number range, location or collection. It works with all/any of our collection codes too, very fancy (also very useless for our library service which has floating collections so nothing is really located in only one spot). It will also alert you to tags which are not 'in' the dump file. This would mean that they had previously been withdrawn and were still sitting on shelf. You can turn this off.
You upload items into it by means of a CSV file, similar to the 3M method it allows you to enter a reason that the item is being detected, unlike the 3M method you don't enter any title details, these come from the local dump file.
Pros: Fast and accurate. The antenna/aerial allows you to stand at one height and scan items on the top/bottom shelves. The thin design allows you to 'shove' the antenna between books to get greater scanability on thin items (where the RFID tags shield each other to a greater degree). Also, being in production means that if I have any issues at all then I ring them and they alter the software for us...I love testing.
Cons: Still quite heavy, similar to the Bibliotheca model (although not that cumbersome). We got around this by placing the device on a small trolley. Also, the device has no way of attaching a keyboard, mouse or, well, anything. This means that the only methods of altering stuff on there is either via the annoying Windows On-Screen Keyboard or via a network. If they gave it a USB key and allowed me to upload the CSV file from there, I would be happier.

RFID self-check machines

I have been analysing our brand new RFID self-check machine that we are planning to install at our latest library to be RFID'd. It is quite interesting how the different vendors program their RFID machines to work. I know that we have some say on what screens come up and in what order, but some of the vendors offer more options than that.

We have used 3 RFID companies in our libraries. Checkpoint were our original RFID vendor, we then moved to 3M and we now use both 3M and FE Technologies. It is funny, FE are a relative newcomer to the RFID world and, probably because of this, are more than happy to alter things for us. 3M, not so much. They have a huge market share so don't really see any point in changing software that works for the masses, I understand their outlook actually, why change something that works?

With the FE RFID self-check machines we have near total control over the interface. Each page of the sequence is an html page with javascript buttons. We can add buttons and remove them, totally revamp the interface if we want and they even have an option so we can translate everything - pages, RFID popups, even the messages coming through the SIP connector. Quite powerful actually.

Even so, there are some things with FE's self-check that are irritating. What will be good though is their responsiveness. We're only just starting our look into altering the interface though so I don't know if they'll be as quick to make changes as we'd like, but here's hoping!

RFID : 3 down, 2 to go

I may be slightly premature here (I am writing this in advance) but, finger's crossed, by the time this post goes to air we will have 3 of our libraries RFID tagged up. This has involved lots of work (particularly for other people).

Isn't it exciting?

Brisbane City Library - Built from Lego Blocks and steel

Oooh, pretty. According to one of the staff at the library (I took a tour), this is one of the top 5 buildings in Brisbane that people 'love to hate'. It reminds me of the Ernst & Young building in Melbourne, a giant mass of glass and steel that is on top of something else (in the case of the E&Y building in Melbourne, it's propped up above the old Herald-Sun offices by yellow poles; in the case of the Brisband Council City Library, it's propped up above some Lego blocks by grey poles and then propped up AGAIN above the grey box by some yellow poles).

The library inside is fascinating. It is over 3 public levels (as well as a basement level featuring a $2mil book sorting machine which is reminiscent of a mail sorting machine). They force all new members to go to an obscure corner of the top level to join, thus ensuring that they give themselves a tour on the way up. They also have all kinds of funky interior features such as glass meeting rooms which made me feel like I was having a meeting in a fish bowl (designed to prevent people shooting up/having sex in obscure meeting room corners) and neon lit shelf ends ("the non fiction section is in the hot pink area next to the go-go dancers").

Interestingly enough, although they have a heap of self-check machines and a giant book sorting/automated returns machine, they don't currently use RFID. Reasoning for this may have something to do with the cost (if you have 32 libraries I am guessing that tagging all of your items would not be cheap).

An interesting thing to note was that they receive all of their items totally shelf ready. Some items (ie some LOTE items) were sent from the supplier to an external cataloguing/processing agent and then to the libraries. I wonder if Brimbank could possibly do something similar, especially as we order some of our stuff direct from the country of origin (ie our Maltese DVDs come to us direct from Malta). That being said, Brisbane's LOTE collection was tiny compared to ours.

Why use barcodes?

Brimbank Libraries are considering stopping the use of barcodes. Fairly soon we will be totally RFID and, when that happens, we don't see the need to have barcodes AND an RFID tag on the book. In fact, the only things we are looking to stick on our items are an RFID tag and a call number sticker. No more stamping and spotting and stickering for us! Our RFID tags will be printed with a pretty design and come with a barcode number printed onto the tag itself. We will then pop that tag on the outside of the item so that the book is 'branded' as one of ours.

There are some problems with this. Our vendor have given us dire warnings about sticking the tag on the outside of the book. They believe that the constant rubbing of the book against other books (and in bags, etc) will damage the tag beyond belief. We are testing this currently and, after heaps of tests, the only thing that seems to kill the tag is if the tag is bent in the wrong spot (which will occur whether it is stuck inside the book or outside the book) or if you scour the small chip in the middle of the tag with something sharp.

Honestly, our items are only meant to last between 5-8 years anyway so it's not going to cause untold grief if they die early.

I think that I must be missing something important though. I have not been able to find another library that has stopped using barcodes because they are using RFID tags. 3M (our RFID vendor) know of only one other library in the world who don't use barcodes, and they were a library that went direct from a card catalogue to RFID...they are also a special use library in a government department and don't have our turnover issues.

If anyone out there can think of any other negatives to doing this then I'd love to hear them. Currently, all I have are the fact that RFID tags could be damaged on the outside of the item (even though I will cover them with contact or some kind of plastic laminate) and that our RFID tags will have numbers printed in a range and we won't have duplicates (so multi-part sets in Chinese or Vietnamese will not have an RFID tag on each item). I am getting around this second bit by probably buying a Brother P-Touch printer to print up labels with the barcode number on them. We will then stick these to items such as mutli-part sets and onto part of an AV item.