RFID labels and technology

[lbishop]

We are planning to purchase a couple of rolls of RFID labels for Reynolds libraries. They are fairly pricey in the rolls of 2000. We have Bibliotheca (formerly 3M) security gates and staff workstation pads. Our system was installed in 2008(ish).

Sourcing the labels is easy enough. Brodart and Demco both carry the Bibliotheca basic ISO RFID tags, and they are both on state contract through MALIA. It's harder to find a micro vendor that carries them, though Jupiter Associates (also on Malia state contract) will source them for us. But the least expensive vendor I have found is Minitex, listed in eVA as the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota. They are neither SWAM nor on state contract, but the savings over the two library vendors is significant and would justify their use.

But I noticed that Demco sells their own brand of ISO RFID tags (not actually cheaper per label than Bibliotheca), and I don't know if they are compatible with our system. Their web catalog doesn't say, and I can't find any library literature on it.

So...I think it would be helpful to hear from libraries using RFID security and circulation systems. For example:

Whose technology do you use?

What brand of RFID labels do you buy, and from which vendor? 

Are the labels proprietary by system or is any RFID label with the same frequency and some programming capability equally useful?

We have had our system for about 14 years. I wonder about its lifespan. I don't want to invest in so many labels if we might have to upgrade in the next three years.

We know that our workstation RFID pads don't work smoothly with Alma, though we can make them work. If we upgraded out pads, would they still work with the same labels? Has anybody upgraded?

We pay annually for a maintenance contract from Bibliotheca for our security gates--for three campuses. It doesn't include hardware upgrades, but we do get prompt service on the gates. But I wonder if we would be better off just paying per service call--and if that would affect the response time.

We lost our self-check capabilities when we moved from Aleph to Alma, and even after buying a new microcomputer when XP was no longer supported, we have not been able to figure it out, and by now that operating system is probably also out of date. Thoughts?

Thank you for your insights!

Lisa Bishop
Reynolds Community College
804-523-5220

[lbishop]

Some helpful links:
Minitex: https://minitex.umn.edu/services/library-products
**You have to create an account and send them your tax exemption certificate to buy directly from them online.
Malia state contracts: http://malialibrary.org/contracts/

[infoprobh]

I'm sending this to Beverly Fifield who takes care of this at TCC.

[lbishop]

Thank you. I've found more information since I posted, including the very helpful ALA Libguide: https://libguides.ala.org/rfid-libraries, which in turn leads to the RFID Primer - by Lori Bowen Ayre (http://galecia.com/content/rfid-primer.

Ms Ayre does say that library RFID systems set up since 2012 must not demand proprietary RFID tags. That's excellent, but since our system was set up in 2008 I requested samples of the Block Lite tags anyway. Still, I am hopeful. And for what it's worth our Downtown Campus had some that they received in 2017, which do work, but since the item number has changed I am still waiting for the samples. Even at only $325.00 per roll of $2000.00, it's not an amount I would want to risk. Affordable Library Products and Budget Library Supplies both list them for that price. They are eVA vendors but not SWAM. But Jupiter Associates would probably procure them for a small markup, or the savings is great enough to justify not using SWAM in this case.

[lbishop]

Conclusion: as long as the RFID tags use frequency 13.56 and comply with ISO Standard 15693-3 and ISO Standard 180000-3, any tag on the market should work with any library vendor's system that is also compliant. The two used most often in Virginia, Bibliotheca and Tech Logic, are compliant. Well, I'm sure Bibliotheca is.

The tags with some variation of "Lite" aren't as thick as others, and may have less memory.