Technically Speaking
 By David Dorman
American Libraries Columnist
ddorma@ltnet.ltls.org
Library consultant for the Lincoln Trail Libraries System in Champaign, Illinois.
Column for September 2002
New Vendors Heating Up
Radio Frequency ID Market
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, which has been simmering on the back burner for years, may be coming to a boil, if the increasing number of entrants into this nascent market is any indication. 3M, Checkpoint, VTLS, Codeco, Lucatron, and Tech Logic were all at the ALA Annual Conference in Atlanta strutting their wireless stuff.
I found a wide variety of approaches to RFID systems among the vendors. 3M stands alone in not offering security through its RFID tags, insisting that its Tattle-Tape Security Strips are superior for theft prevention. While this is a self-serving position to take in light of the fact that 3M virtually owns the security-strip market, the relative merits of security strips vs. RFID tags is an issue that potential RFID library customers will want to investigate.
There are other differences as well. Some vendors, such as 3M, tightly control the formatting of the data on the RFID chips, and will not discuss data format in any detail. Other systems, such as Lucatron’s Bibliotheca, are open and flexible about the data formats they use and will work with. Another difference is that some companies put only a unique barcode number and a toggle switch representing one of two states—checked in or checked out—on their RFID chips. Other companies add such data as the title and call number of the item. In the former case, the RFID system links to the item record in the ILS to get the data it needs; in the latter case, the RFID system itself reads the data on the chip without querying the ILS.
Most of the vendors are moving to support the ISO 15693 standard, a physical and session-level protocol. This is a “low-level” communication standard that has nothing to say about what data is on the chip, how that data is formatted, or the read/write requirements of the RFID equipment. ISO 15693 was designed for the transportation industry, and it won’t be too long before the RFID vendors in the library community begin to support ISO 18000, which is designed specifically for inventory control. But not to worry: ISO 18000 incorporates ISO 15693 so it will be backward-compatible.
A number of initiatives are underway to develop RFID data communication standardization between the RFID chip and its reader, but to my knowledge they are not near completion. However, the data transfer between the RFID reader and the local ILS typically adheres to the SIP2 industry standard. This will soon be replaced by the NISO NCIP protocol.
There are many choices and trade-offs for a library in the RFID marketplace, but the key to buying a system that will be a long-term investment is to get RFID tags that meet current standards and can be reprogrammed and used with the majority of RFID readers. This is your insurance that the investment your library makes in RFID tags will outlast its commitment to whatever RFID reader hardware is purchased.
With regard to the RFID chips themselves, VTLS says it will begin selling the tags for 66 or 67 cents each, which represents a gradual but steady price decline.
Adobe Releases E-book Server
The announcement in June by Adobe of version 3.0 of the Adobe Content Server represents a milestone in the firm’s quest to be a major player in the e-book distribution marketplace. The company purchased Glassbook in August 2000 in order to obtain the technology behind the e-book content server that Glassbook announced in May of that year. Adobe was, and still is, hoping to parlay the popularity of its “electronic paper” technology—PDF (Portable Document Format)—into a dominant role in e-book distribution using PDF technology.
When Adobe first announced its plans for marketing the Glassbook Content Server in fall 2000, the company’s stated goal was to require a transaction payment each time the Content Server software was used to purchase content. This intent to take a bite out of every transaction utilizing the server has now been abandoned with the release of version 3.0.
In order to obtain content through the Adobe Content Server, users must have Adobe Acrobat E-book Reader software, which is freely available for downloading. This is an independent client—not a browser plug-in. The next major release of the Adobe Acrobat Reader client will add Acrobat E-book Reader functionality, resulting in a single Acrobat Reader product that will handle both PDF files and e-book content server files.
Adobe’s approach to access management is to have the access-control software reside on a content server. A document is only accessible to users when they get permission from the server to view the document. When a user gets the “key” to a document, he or she can download that document and view it offline, using the software key provided by the Content Server. However, the document remains encrypted, and can only be decrypted using the key. If the document is copied to another computer, that second computer will not be able to (legally) decrypt the document unless it, too, is given a key by the Content Server.
Adobe hopes that both individual libraries as well as content providers will use the Content Server. It is already in use by NetLibrary, Ebrary, and quite a few publishers. Visit the Adobe site for more information about the Adobe Content Server.
RFID Contracts
- Tech Logic and Tagsys—with the Seattle Public Library, for an RFID-based automated checkout/check-in and sorting system at the library’s new facility, currently under construction; and with the Clinton-Macomb (Mich.) Public Library District, for an RFID-based checkout/check-in and sorting system, at the district’s new main library, currently under construction.
- VTLS and Tagsys—with the Universiti Terbuka Malaysia (UNITEM) located in Kuala Lumpur, for an RFID inventory-management and security system for the library.
Other Contracts and Agreements
- Ex Libris—with CILEA, a consortium of Italian universities, for an Aleph 500 system for the University of Milano-Bicocca in Milan and the Insubria University, with campuses in Milan, Varese, and Como, Italy, to replace an SBN/Unisys system; with Intercollege in Nicosia, Cyprus, for an Aleph 500 system for the college’s three campuses, replacing OpenText’s Techlib system; with the California State University System, for SFX for the system’s 23 universities, which use a variety of library management systems; with the State University of New York, an existing Ex Libris customer, for SFX for SUNY’s 64 campuses; and with the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science in Munich, Germany; Bayer AG in Leverkusen, Germany; and the University of Innsbruck in Austria, all existing Ex Libris customers, for MetaLib and SFX.
- Sirsi—with the University of Alaska/Fairbanks, the Capital City Libraries Council in Juneau, and the Fairbanks North Star Borough Library, for a Unicorn system for 35 Alaska libraries, to replace a VTLS Classic system, a Dynix system, and a DRA system respectively; and with two Canadian libraries, the University of Alberta and the Edmonton Public Library, for a Unicorn system for both libraries and for the NEOS Consortium of 20 academic, government, and medical libraries in Alberta, to replace their DRA Classic systems.
- Innovative Interfaces—with California State University/Northridge, for a Millennium library system to manage the library’s 1.2-million volume collection, replacing a Geac Advance system.
- TLC—with the Pomona (Calif.) Public Library for Library.Solution, YouSeeMore, and the Kid’s Catalog, to replace the library’s Talisman system; with the Goodnight Memorial Library in Franklin, Kentucky, for Library.Solution to replace the library’s Brodart system; with the Duerson-Oldham County Public Library in LaGrange, Kentucky, for Library.Solution to replace the library’s TLC BiblioFile system; and with the Putnam County Library in Cookeville, Tennessee, for Library.Solution to replace its Auto-Graphics system.
- Gaylord Information Systems—with the Clinton-Macomb (Mich.) Public Library, for a Polaris system to replace the District’s Sirsi Unicorn system; with the Euless (Tex.) Public Library, for a Polaris system to replace a Gaylord Galaxy system; and with the Perry (Iowa) Public Library, for a Polaris system to replace a Galaxy system.
- Epixtech—with the Whistler (British Columbia, Canada) Public Library for a Horizon Sunrise system to replace its Eloquent system; with the New Hampshire Law Library in Concord, for Horizon Sunrise as its first online catalog; with St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for an ASP contract for Horizon Sunrise to replace its Micro VTLS system; and with four members of theAssociation of Research Libraries for the URSA resource-sharing system: Brown, Cornell, and Princeton Universities, and Dartmouth College.
- Endeavor—with the University of Kansas in Lawrence, an existing Voyager customer, for the Encompass system.
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