Restoring ILS Accuracy with RFID (From the ALA Tech Talk Stage)

"Do our shelves match our catalog?" — Restoring ILS accuracy with RFID

Whether you’re a public, school, academic, or special library—ALL libraries know the battle for ILS accuracy. Are we doomed forever to one-by-one barcode scanning, repetitive searches, and tedious lists?

If you didn't get a chance to join our Principal Librarian/Strategist Gretchen Freeman, TLC's Steve Mackey, and Dr. Melissa Frost from Rochester City School District at ALA's Tech Talk Stage, check out the recording, below!

‍

‍

This Tech Talk Stage session centered around the ways in which RFID helps libraries remove exception items immediately from the stacks, accomplish lightning-fast inventory, and more. Gretchen Freeman, Tech Logic's Principal Librarian/Strategist, explained Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and its benefits across the library operation.

"For public libraries, RFID is often used because publics are doing heavy lifting with circulation," Gretchen said. "I now see academic, special, and school libraries who are hopping on board with RFID and finding it useful for inventory and shelf management particularly, or circulation with a small staff."

"One of the most popular applications for RFID is called exceptions scanning," Gretchen continued. "That means that I'm going to link staffCIRC TRAK to my ILS via WiFi in my building, and now I'm doing real-time queries against the ILS. So, each time that wand passes an item, it's saying "what's the current status of the item in real time?" and then it tells that status back to staffCIRC TRAK...if it encounters an item that is in an exception status--lost, claimed returned, missing, checked out--it will alert on the tablet and let you know that you've found an exception. ... Put your effort into exceptions scanning and it keeps your catalog squeaky clean."

Steve Mackey, Library Sales Consultant at The Library Corporation (TLC--Tech Logic's parent company) gave insight on some of the extra abilities staffCIRC TRAK brings when it's connected to TLC's Library.Solution or CARL systems. "Since Tech Logic is part of the family at The Library Corporation," Steve shared, "we have opportunity to do some deeper development that provides even better efficiency with RFID and the staffCIRC TRAK wand."

Dr. Melissa Frost, Systems Librarian at Rochester City School District, described their district's insights as one of the first school districts in the country to implement RFID. From inventorying books and musical instruments, to finding lost items, to ensuring items are properly checked in, to facilitating collection migration, the staff at Rochester City School District have found creative ways to make RFID work for them.

"I think [RFID] is where all libraries—school, academic, public—will be in the future," Dr. Frost shared. "It's just such a time saver."

‍Streamline your workflow and extend your reach

Tech Logic provides solutions that automate library workflows, so librarians can focus less on repetitive tasks and more on community engagement. We'd love to talk with you about your current workflow and answer any questions you have about library technology.