Standards

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

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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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I just posted a very useful piece written by Alan Butters and Paul Chartier in response to a question asked on the US RFID list concerning UHF tags. Alan and Paul are two of the world’s leading authorities on RFID standards so this summary is compulsory reading for those of us with an interest in how the technology is developing.

In the library context the actual RFID technology to be used is, of course, a key element to consider but maybe not the only one? I think there might be at least three overlapping areas that have to be considered by anyone thinking of making, what is likely to be, a fairly major investment in a library RFID solution.
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The following was recently posted by Alan Butters and Paul Chartier  in reply to a question asked on the US RFID List about using UHF or HF tags in the library. The CityU referred to in the text is in Hong Kong. I thought it might interest regular readers of this blog who may not subscribe to the US list so I have taken the liberty of posting it in full. continue

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The official summary (issued by the ISO) has now been published at http://biblstandard.dk/rfid/docs/summary.htm

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The last meeting of the BIC/CILIP RFID committee began looking more closely at the ways in which improved communication between existing LMS and RFID systems might be improved by examining the existing methodologies and seeking improvements.

With RFID initially being deployed in support of self-service operations most solutions use 3M’s SIP protocol as the primary data transport mechanism between LMS and RFID systems but for some time now there has been some unhappiness on the part of libraries and RFID suppliers with the protocol’s perceived deficiencies in handling some aspects of the circulation process – in particular in handling financial transactions.

Added to that, the fairly loose device of allowing essentially unregulated “extensions” to SIP to be created by pretty much anyone who wishes has resulted in a protocol that – whilst still essential – is now seen by some to be holding back the pace of development of RFID.

Some LMS providers, especially those relatively new to RFID, and even to self-service, have been reluctant to develop support for what they see as “old” technology. This reluctance has given rise to the creation of new means of handling some RFID based transactions – with web services being prominent among those now being used in conjunction with SIP to provide better financial management for example.

Aware of these developments, but also mindful of the large number of non-RFID installations dependent on SIP (in both self-service and other areas of library operations) the committee felt that now was a good time to review existing options with a view to both regularising existing practices as well as creating a platform of services upon which future systems might be built.

As a first step the meeting agreed to create a smaller working party to examine the existing SIP 2.0 functionality and to create a common set of web services to replace its present base functionality. The plan is to have these services in place by the end of 2010.

Given the nature of SIP – and its extensions – the committee wants to get as much feedback as possible from the market, especially existing users, about their present use of SIP, and any known limitations of which they may already be aware.

3M mentioned at the same meeting that the USA were about to issue a statement about the development of a version 3.0 of SIP. Seen by them as a pragmatic alternative to the rather slowly emerging NCIP protocol for self-service their intention is to revise and revamp SIP to meet the new demands of the market.

The meeting welcomed this announcement – which was confirmed as being imminent by the US office a week later but has yet to appear – and suggested that the definition of SIP 3.0 could just as readily define a web service as another serial-based protocol, i.e. the functionality to be delivered could be the same in either scenario and agreed to keep 3M informed of our work, hopeful that this spirit of co-operation would be reciprocated.

I was asked to provide the focal point for this undertaking and, as a first step, to use all the avenues of communication open to me to garner input from the market. This post appears on both the UK RFID list and my blog – please pass it on to anyone you know who might be willing to contribute.

So what we are seeking from you are details of any extensions to SIP 2.0 that you may be running on your site, together with any known deficiencies of the protocol preventing you from deploying additional functionality.

Just to remind new readers the BIC/CILIP RFID committee currently includes all of the members of the RFID Alliance, many early (and some late) library adopters of RFID, representatives from most of the library materials supply chain, and the library systems market. So it’s about as representative a group as we can construct.

We still need your help though!

Thanks a lot

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For different reasons I have been looking at specifications for RFID systems from three different library services this week. They are from academic as well as public libraries, and from several years ago as well as the present day, and they all have one thing in common. Their authors are still unclear about the precise nature of ISO 28560. So here’s an attempt to clear that confusion.

RFID is brimming with standards and the library market is no exception. Suppliers are fond of quoting standards as evidence of their compliance – and of course it is – but since all the UK’s major suppliers adhere to the same standards the numbers aren’t much help in understanding what matters to the library. The one area that arguably matters most has been overlooked for years in a kind of voluntary conspiracy between the libraries and their providers.

A key question that some libraries asked when they first purchased RFID was “Will I be able to read your tags with someone else’s hardware?”

So many libraries made this a mandatory requirement that suppliers found a variety of ways of saying “yes”.  The answer “it’s impossible to know” would have been more accurate, but it would also have meant that the bid failed and that both parties walked away empty handed.

There was, and is, a huge  momentum behind RFID so not buying is not an option and UK libraries took comfort from the obvious fact that many libraries were already doing this overseas, without really understanding why the way they were doing it was different in one crucial aspect.

One way to say “yes” is to focus on all the standards mentioned above. Adherence to all the “air interface” and encoding standards will enable you to read the tag but what you read will make no sense unless you have the means to decode it.

Most often the means to decode it will be the data model that was used to create it in the first place. The data model tells the system where on the tag to look for data, and what that data is. A common data model is the almost certainly the best guarantee of being able to answer “yes” to that key question – and Scandinavian countries, the Dutch and the French understood this – but in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand and many other countries we decided to do without one. Early adopters are now discovering the consequences of that decision…

Last year the market as a whole set about putting that right. BIC, CILIP and the RFID Alliance all agreed that we had to adopt a common standard and chose to use ISO 28560 – the global data model for libraries. This is not yet published – so RFPs should be saying “Will you support it?” rather than “Do you support it?” – and when it is published it will support vastly more information than anyone is ever likely to need.

So we sat down again – the RFID suppliers, the LMS providers, some library suppliers, libraries, and me – and went through 28560 to pick out the useful bits. This is the “UK data model” and this is the really important bit to put in the RFP.

So in summary:

ISO28560 is a data standard

ISO 28560-2 is the chosen version upon which the UK will build future RFID solutions

The UK Data Model is the subset of ISO 28560-2 that suppliers have pledged to support.

Of course – if you’re still not sure – you can always ask me.

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I subscribe to a list on LinkedIn where RFID suppliers gather to exchange information and ideas about how the technology can be of benefit.

When I say “be of benefit” I am of course talking about the supplier rather than the client – or so I have discovered this morning.

A company has spotted an opportunity to sell a Vietnamese university an RFID solution. They have already decided that it should be UHF rather than HF because “We are looking to implement a UHF solution for library application so that we can… integrate that solution into our global solution platform.”

Suppliers of UHF solutions are now scrambling to supply their tags and readers in support of this opportunity. One voice suggested that there might be a need to consider the needs of the library and take account of libraries’ tendency to be risk-averse and support standards. The writer has actually worked with libraries and suggests that UHF is not the way to go.

There are over 30 responses to this point now – and still growing. Not one of the companies has mentioned data. All of the discussion is about air interface and communications standards. Even here it seems that the UHF world is in some disarray with this quote in particular catching my eye:

“ISO 15693 / 18000-3 / 18000-6c are standards, not laws.

There are no sweeping rules for which one is the better; recognising that libraries are different and have different aims. What is a good solution for one library is not necessarily good for another library. There are pros and cons with both ISO 15693 and ISO 18000-6c which should be weighted in relation to the those parameters. “

Translation:

“My company doesn’t support these standards and I don’t care what the library’s needs might be.”

Don’t worry about what these standards are too much if you’re in Europe, North America or most of Australia/New Zealand – but if you’re in Asia you may have some cause for concern.

It’s by no means an uncommon response. The list is awash with views about standards that even I had to look up. Only Paul Chartier, of my colleagues, might be able to tell me what they all are. It’s an RFID-geek’s paradise. But only one respondent is aware that most of the world’s libraries have already invested in systems that need to work with the solutions they are selling – and that ignoring that fact will ultimately result in wasted investment and great unhappiness.

The London conference heard from the company that manufactures the majority of the world’s chips (the tiny pieces of intelligence inside every RFID tag) for the library market that UHF was NOT the right solution. They manufacture chips for all RFID uses so have no vested interest in saying this.

I’m not trying to persuade the Asian market to think again. In fact, if they’re not trying to  integrate with an existing ILS/LMS, they can do pretty much what they like.

Even outside of Asia we are beginning to see the first stirrings of RFID companies looking to extend their reach into LMS/ILS territory but at least these companies have some idea of how their market works. The Asian situation is like asking a manufacturer of yellow paint what colour you should paint your house.

So be careful when you read about these wonderful solutions being deployed in Asia. The company promoting them may be unaware, or worse uncaring, of the needs of their clients.

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J.E. Skip Driessen, the RFID Portfolio Manager for 3M’s Track & Trace Solutions Department in St Paul MN posted the following message on the US RFID list overnight (UK time):

“In response to the inquiries and comments posted today, Mick Fortune is completely correct!  

We look forward to participation and support from all vested parties in making this a reality.”

The UK working party on interoperability – of which 3M are a member – will be providing feedback on their progress with web service development to the SIP 3.0 project. There is of course no reason why SIP 3.0 and new web services should be in conflict – they could even be the same thing.

The UK group understands the need to ensure that the work we do on building new protocols protects everyone – worldwide – that has already invested in SIP (and that’s a lot of libraries!). The group decided at its first meeting that support for existing SIP version 2.0 is a minimum requirement.

We look forward to sharing our ideas and developments with 3M – and vice versa.

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Earlier this week I mentioned that Bibliotheca have announced a new memorandum of understanding with Civica.

Last night I was delighted to see the following reply from Johannes Rogg, Managing Director of Bibliotheca’s UK company posted on the UK RFID list:

“Hi Mick,

Thanks for your valuable comments. I fully agree with your statement, that HF is currently the frequency of choice for libraries; this is a main reason for this announcement.

With regards to your question on encryption I have no idea where this rumour is coming from, but Bibliotheca currently supplies to specification required by customer and market and our standard supply is the Danish data model with no encryption. Our BiblioChip technology enables us to support multiple data models in the same deployment and to rewrite chips on new models including the upcoming ISO standard on the fly.

One more word to you blog entry from yesterday, which I enjoyed reading very much:

You say. “To overcome this gap Civica is partnering with Bibliotheca to offer our fully standardized HF solution based on the BiblioChip technology and our experience and proactive standardization policy in this area.”

…which appears to imply that all Civica’s existing HF based installations are not standards based.”

As you know UK market is relatively standardised and will be more so when we can adopt the ISO standard and the UK profile. World-wide things are broader and its important for Bibliotheca as a world-wide player to meet these requirements whether for tags, interfacing standards or elsewhere.

Equally as a supplier it makes our life easier of standards are adopted so please keep evangelising standard such as ISO 28560-2. Success in broadening adoption is good for libraries and suppliers and will reduce costs for all in the longer term.

Best regards

Johannes Rogg
Managing Director

Bibliotheca RFID Library Systems Ltd.

I posted a brief reply to the list but as most of the points he was answering related to those made here I thought it might be helpful to post his reply here as well.

I asked whether Bibliotheca encrypted any of their data – a question we asked everyone who attended the meetings that established the UK data model back in 2009. Bibliotheca had not been present at that meeting so it seemed reasonable to ask them now. Apparently there is a rumour going around that some Bibliotheca sites have encrypted data. Well frankly it’s a bit more than a rumour – some libraries with Bibliotheca systems do have encrypted data (they have written to tell me so) - but no-one seems to know why. To be fair to Johannes he says that they prefer to adhere to standards – but also implies that they will always do whatever the customer tells them.

I’ve heard that argument from other suppliers.

Now I happen to believe that many librarians aren’t very sure of their ground here (because they tell me they’re not) and that many have previously asked for things that aren’t necessarily a good idea. I also happen to think that suppliers have a duty of care to advise when an idea might not be such a good one.  I’ve lost a lot of business that way .

My main point – that Civica already have an HF RFID solution in the UK – wasn’t really answered at all. Instead I am reminded that it’s a big world and people elsewhere have different needs (with no apparent irony) and that Bibliotheca have a product that meets all of them. Readers with long memories may remember that I commented on this product when it was launched in the US. No-one answered my concerns at the time, maybe they will now?

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