[Koha] Koha and RFID

Fri Jan 16 09:51:05 NZDT 2015

  1.  We are testing out the changes mentioned.
  2.  We have TechLogic pads on our self-checks and they are wonderful.  The staff pads are Bibliotheca and are weak.
  3.  We had the gates setup so they would only alarm when people left the building.  This resulted in 1 out of every 100 items with security turned on to trigger the alarm.  We had to change the gate to alarm when patrons come in the building and leave the building to get them to detect and alarm at a 75% rate.

I know it makes no sense at all, but Bibliotheca gave the response that people were moving too fast to properly trigger the alarm.

Directional alarming has a sensor that triggers the entry.  It then checks the security of the items.  The gates are either too slow or we need to require patrons to walk in slow motion when they leave the building.

When you put on Bidirectional, alarming it disables the sensors and checks for security first.

Either way it is something to be aware of when dealing with Bibliotheca, and their gates.

Jason Burds
I.T. Supervisor
Carnegie-Stout Public Library<http://www.dubuque.lib.ia.us/>
(563)589-4229

From: Lori Ayre [mailto:loriayre at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 2:36 PM
To: Jason M. Burds
Cc: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
Subject: Re: [Koha] Koha and RFID

Hi Jason,

You are describing some things that suggest to me you have issues with your implementation.  The limitations you are describing are not common to all RFID implementations.

1.  SIP connections flooding your system:  Not typical. Sounds like others on this thread have some ideas for you. This would be a Koha issue and not an RFID issue.

2. RFID pads are not powerful and require shuffling:  This is a problem withe product you are using. You didn't state whether you were talking about the pads used by staff or the ones used in the self-check machines.  If staff, I'd harangue Bibliotheca until they get you some pads you are happy with.  If it's the self-check machines....I have heard from other Bibliotheca customers that their tabletop units don't have good pads. If they are unsatisfactory, again, harass your vendor until you are satisfied.  Did you put any kind of performance requirement in your RFP?  That's what I do with clients.  That way if items aren't getting read as promised, it is on the vendor to fix it.

3. DVDs/Stingrays/Bidirectional Gates:  This makes no sense.  I wonder if you are not understanding something about how direction gates work. If you have set up your gates s they only alarm when a patron is ENTERING the library, then the gates will simply stop alarming unless two conditions exist:  the gates detect someone walking into the library and they also detect an unchecked out item (which may or may not be associated with the person who is walking through the gates).  Gates detect RFID tags up to 18 inches or so in all directions.  All the directionality does is control whether the alarm will sound or not.  And, there are two ways to determine directionality.  One is for the gates to set up two seeing eyes (lasers or whatever) so that when the laser beam is broken in the right order, the gates know someone walked in.  There's another technology used as well which uses radar.  Anyway, this is probably not the reason your DVDs aren't being detected.  Any discs with metal on one side are simply not doing to get detected. And if you have more than one Stingray on a set of discs (e.g. books on CD), they will probably conflict with one another and render all the tags useless.

4.  Now, that conforms with my understanding!

Hope the above info helps.

Lori Ayre

On Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 3:01 PM, Jason M. Burds <JBurds at dubuque.lib.ia.us<mailto:JBurds at dubuque.lib.ia.us>> wrote:
We are in the end stages of a long and painful RFID migration.  To answer your question, SIP makes checkouts and check-ins work much faster.

We chose Bibliotheca for our vendor.  They do have a Circ manager software that will connect with SIP and allow for multiple items checking in and out.  Our staff still has to bring up the patrons account in Koha to verify holds and overdues.  There are many bugs with it but overall it functions most of the time.

Warning about Bibliotheca and Koha
1. SIP connections are tremendous and will eventually lockup your SIP server with flood messages.  We have to restart SIP server every morning, to clear out log files.
2. RFID pads are not powerful and will disappoint you, expect to have to shuffle items to get them to read.
3. Gates cannot detect DVD's with Stingray tags when the gate is set to only alarm on outgoing traffic.  You need bidirectional detection.  This may be important on how you tag your collection and how you plan your implementation.
4. Inventory device needs to run on Windows 7.  Good luck with anyone with a new PC in the last 2 years.  OS on inventory device is an old windows palm OS.  We are still waiting for a replacement for one that came bad out of the box, 2 months after receiving it.

Not to be overly negative about them, they do have a few good support staff and a programmer David who is excellent.

In addition, we have Tech Logic self-checks that are near perfect on detection and RFID pads are 50% stronger.  Makes me wish we would have spent the money and went with them 100%.

Good luck and if you have any questions let me know.

Jason Burds
I.T. Supervisor
Carnegie-Stout Public Library
(563)589-4229<tel:%28563%29589-4229>

-----Original Message-----
From: Koha [mailto:koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz<mailto:koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz>] On Behalf Of Liz Rea
Sent: Wednesday, January 7, 2015 1:07 PM
To: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz<mailto:koha at lists.katipo.co.nz>
Subject: Re: [Koha] Koha and RFID

It would be awesome if all replies to this email could come to the list, so that we can make a FAQ for the website.

Cheers,
Liz Rea

On 31/12/14 07:04, Keener, Nancy wrote:
> Our library is considering RFID in our near future.  Are there any Koha libraries out there using RFID?   Does SIP limit RFID functionality?  And finally, what vendor did you choose?
>
> Nancy Keener
> Systems Librarian
> I.T.O.S.C. Chair
> Washoe County Library System
> Reno, Nevada
> 775 327-8347<tel:775%20327-8347>
> nkeener at washoecounty.us<mailto:nkeener at washoecounty.us>
>
>
>
> ea
> http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

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