Very interesting meeting on Wednesday about RFID. Susan Gately from Hobsons Bay Libraries spoke about the implementation of RFID at Altona Meadows, then Eoin Geaney from 3M gave some facts and figures about the different needs academic, special, public and school libraries have for RFID and a bit of technical discussion then finally Alan Butters of Sybis gave some pointers for the kind of process that should take place before you pick up the phone to place an order with “Vendor”The implementation of RFID at Altona Meadows has been a huge success, thirty percent of loans are now handled with the self serve machine, freeing staff to devote quality time to more patrons. The machines are big hit with the children, and more generally because RFID wasn’t sold as a cost cutting measure, rather with all the excitement that cutting edge technology can invoke, particularly in the Western suburbs of Melbourne where less resources have traditionally been devoted.

Some of the libraries in Australia already implementing RFID are
Gold Coast City
Altona Meadows (first in Victoria!)
Swansea Public Library
High Court of Australia
West Ryde Library
Marrickville Public Library
Redcliffe Library
Medical Library of Canberra Hospital
Belmont Public Library
Brisbane City Council at Wynnum
Commonwealth Parliamentary Library
University of Technology Sydney

and an interesting fact: it takes 2 people to process 260-350 items an hour when first programming the tags, and at Altona Meadows, just as a by the way comment, volunteers aged from 70 to 75 had no difficulties at all with the process:) and incidentally helped the library achieve tagging the inventory in a record three weeks!

Alan Butters from Sybis went through some of the questions to ask when considering RFID in your library, such as
Why?
What do we expect?
What will a successful outcome look like?
How will we know if we are successful? What are the critical success factors for our library?

and a useful tip to kickstart the research process: don’t pick up the phone to a vendor before you have read the literature on RFID available on websites and in general circulation…vendors are all different as are systems, and a preliminary stroll through the options can be a big help before you begin. Alan’s presentation on workshopping the RFID decision process is available via email and Alan can be contacted at
alan @sybis.com.au

Finally about 12 members of the audience, the speakers and the VALA commitee wandered down to University House for convivial dinner and drinks at a very reasonable price… I had the cherry tomato, prosciutto and roast chicken risotto (chef’s special!) and was thrilled to spot Barry Jones of the Labour Party and quiz participant extraordinaire at a table across the way…at first I thought it was Bob Ellis but I wasn’t wearing my glasses so may be excused this minor error. Many thanks to the committee, the speakers and fellow audience members for some amusing conversation on a bitterly cold melbourne midwinter wednesday evening. Glad I ventured out!