More concerns about ISO 28560-2 this morning.

Recently I’ve been pointing out the simple fact that, since none of the RFID suppliers have yet developed support for the new standard, none of them are supplying it. Last week I received two phone calls from third parties expressing concerns about their legal position in this regard, last night an email arrived from a library. continue

Following yesterday’s request from EDITeur Paul Chartier posted the following helpful explanation of the exact status and import of this action on the US RFID list. .

“EU INITIATIVE ON RFID PRIVACY & SECURITY continue

Brian Green, Executive Director of the International ISBN Agency and EDITeur has asked me to help publicise the above document which may become a serious threat to the use of RFID in libraries. Rather than rehearse the arguments here I will simply direct you to the EDITeur site where you can read both Brian’s remarks and the original document.

This is a serious threat to the present and future use of RFID in libraries.

This year’s main RFID event for UK libraries will once again be held at the Kings Place in London on November 9^th. Last year’s event was billed as being the turning point for the technology with a new data standard about to be published, and the entire UK Library RFID market pledged to support the newly minted UK data model.  Interoperability issues were finally being addressed and even the system specifications were available free of charge. continue

Earlier this week I was automatically forwarded a copy of TALIS Partner News from my former colleagues at 2CQR. I read with interest the news that ESPO had added another supplier to Framework Agreement 350 – RFID systems for libraries. continue

Looking into a problem being experienced by a UK Public Library service last week I was struck once again by the apparent reluctance of librarians to complain about the systems and services in which they have often heavily invested. continue

At the present moment there is no UK statutory body authorised to test technical compliance with ISO Library Data Model standard (ISO 28560). There is, as Paul Chartier has mentioned previously, software in existence which can verify that tags are being correctly encoded but so far as I am aware none of the RFID Alliance are using it. There is no reason why they should of course – it costs money – but one would hope that no-one would risk installing a fairly complex model (with over 1 billion possible combinations I’m told by Alan Butters) without testing.

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