Today marks a key milestone for our State-wide Network. Significant funding from the Libraries Board has brought forward the Network's ability to implement RFID circulation - particularly for all items circulating between libraries. At the start of this project the Network already had over two million items with chips in them - meaning that we'd passed the 50% mark in RFID tagged items.
Seventy Six library branches which were not RFID enabled prior to this project have purchased an RFID pad & are using the tags supplied by the Board to tag all items as they are shipped out to other libraries. Tagging items that are being shipped to other libraries is a key efficiency measure for libraries which have already tagged their own collections, and are using a "self check" approach for customers. Prior to today these libraries had to run two parallel systems for items with chips & those without. Some libraries chose to place chips into all incoming items, while others ran two checkout systems. Neither of these solutions were ideal, so it will be a real bonus for these libraries to move away from the need to do this.
These benefits will continue to grow as libraries complete the tagging of their own collections. This will allow these libraries to move to local RFID circulation if they choose to do so.
Mount Barker is the 1st library during this project to fully tag their collections, using the loan equipment that we have from our supplier Bibliotheca. And I know that Charles Sturt isn't far behind. There are ten other libraries using this loan equipment to speed up their tagging process. This equipment will move on to other libraries as per the schedule that James Kemperman has published.
We're aware that a significant number of libraries are well ahead on their tagging schedule, which is great news for the network.
Obviously there are some items currently in transit between libraries which aren't tagged, so I would expect that libraries will continue to receive untagged items for a week or two.
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