This is a correspondance from our state library about participating in EZProxy with the Montana Libraries. Do we need to conform to their barcode requirements? Lee in Butte Good morning, A primary reason to move to standardized patron and item barcodes is the possibility that the library will become a member of a shared system, of whatever kind, in time. Once in a shared system, where the patron database in that system is not "segmented", non-standard IDs, particularly those built incrementally (1000, 1001, etc.), run the risk of coming up against an identical ID. This is the case for either patron or item IDs and it stops the transaction in the system. A segmented patron database in a shared ILS, while it could protect against this, doesn't lend itself easily to opening up user walls when the libraries are ready to share user privileges (placing holds, checkout, checkin) between multiple libraries within the same system. Barcodes standardization is, I believe, another area we get mired in, during statewide discussions. This detail, while essential to the larger picture, seems to often detract us from that larger picture.