CILIP’s RFID in Libraries Conference 2011

How can RFID help libraries face dual challenge?
Tuesday 8 November 2011, The Bloomsbury Hotel, London

Libraries everywhere are facing the dual challenge of delivering improved services with diminishing budgets. The contribution technology can make to squaring this circle has possibly never been more important, and RFID is at the heart of it. The conference on 8th November 2011 in London will explore changes in world of RFID and how the latest decision by providers to adopt a single common standard changes will enable new buyers the freedom to pick and choose the RFID devices they prefer.

This year’s conference will bring:
* 17 expert speakers from across the RFID Community (including Mark Hughes from Swansea University)
* RFID technology demonstrations from leading suppliers
* RFID Alliance Panel- your chance to ask the experts questions
* The BIC/CILIP RFID in Libraries Innovation Award 2011
* Open forum discussion sessions

Make sure you take advantage of our registration offers by visiting the conference website www.cilip.org.uk/rfid2011  and book your place today. Places are strictly limited are will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

Tendering for RFID Systems

Book Industry Communication (BIC) and the National Acquisitions Group (NAG) are pleased to announce the publication on their respective web sites today of Tendering for RFID Systems: A Core Specification for Libraries by Mick Fortune of Library RFID and Mark Hughes of Swansea University.

This document provides libraries intending to issue tender documents for radio frequency ID systems with a comprehensive checklist of questions they should ask themselves and their suppliers in order to ensure that they will get the functionality and levels of interoperability they require.

Mark’s varied career in Libraries has encompassed work at many different levels, mainly in the systems and service management fields, across both public and academic sectors. He has managed two successful large scale RFID implementations: the first for Swansea Public Libraries; then on a second occasion for a consortium project for the 3 Universities in the South West Wales Higher Education Partnership, and was one of the original authors of the Open RFID in Libraries Specification.

Mark has been in post as Head of Collections at Swansea University since March 2009. His current duties include management of finance, collections and library systems. He remains strongly involved in RFID development, and is an active member of the BIC/CILIP RFID in Libraries Group.

The publication is available for free download at http://www.bic.org.uk/e4librariesfiles/pdfs/110613%20Tendering%20for%20RFID%20Systems%20final.pdf.

Open Source for Libraries

Over 20 representatives from Welsh HE, FE and Public Libraries gathered in Swansea in April to spend a day hearing about Open Source for libraries – theory and practice.

To find some excellent notes and links to all the slides, speakers and systems, take a look at the RSC Wales post at http://blogs.rsc-wales.ac.uk/lr/2009/04/22/open-source-for-libraries-day-at-swansea/

Speakers Mark Hughes, Ken Chad and Nick Dimant gave their perspectives on the background to open source in libraries – the current environment and reasons for and against looking at open source solutions. Jonathan Field from PTFS Europe gave a detailed demo and comparison of the 2 major open source systems: Koha and Evergreen. There was also an overview of the ongoing implementation of the open source VuFind system as part of the Virtual Academic Library project in Wales. VuFind is being used to provide a common interface for searching 3 universities’ print and electronic resource collections. The project is a good example of how Wales is leading the way on library collaboration and open source development.

Mark Hughes also publicised the useful work that has been done at Swansea with RFID, resulting in the Open RFID in Libraries Specification (ORILS) being published under a Creative Commons licence. This can be re-used by anyone undertaking an RFID procurement process and work is ongoing to build a community of practice to encourage interoperability between the different RFID systems.