Frequencies

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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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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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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Last week my attention was directed to a report produced for the Book Industry Study Group outlining an RFID project being developed by Wiley in the USA. I posted some comments on both the US and UK RFID lists on Friday.

My initial interest was in the simple fact that someone in the book trade – other than BGN – was at last considering RFID, particularly since it was clear from the report that the use of RFID in libraries had not been considered at all.

Interestingly (and unusually) while the UK list remained entirely silent, US libraries responded vigorously with most contributors making no distinction between the entirely different frequency and data model being proposed by the trade. Replies, mostly concerned with privacy issues, seemed to disregard the fact that book trade tags – operating at UHF over much greater distances – could not be read by library RFID applications – operating at HF and short range.

There is of course a genuine concern about privacy regardless of which frequency and data model the book trade uses but I don’t see why that it’s a matter that is only of concern to libraries. One contributor was concerned that airport security might be able to detect what books were in a passenger’s luggage (or pocket) by using an RFID reader to detect the ISBN – one of the fields planned for inclusion by Wiley.

Now that’s a perfectly reasonable concern but the real point is that the offending tags (and data) would be present on ANY book supplied by Wiley – whether to a library, bookshop or direct to the client. It’s difficult to see why libraries would want to take any ownership of a problem they can do little about.

Of course there’s also the fact that airport security equipment looking for such tags would detect every item within 30 feet – making it difficult to pinpoint any individual – would also tend to mitigate the possible privacy violation.

The radically different reactions from the two  lists makes me wonder whether it reflects a deeper understanding of the technology among UK libraries. Are UK librarians now so comfortable with RFID that they instinctively understand the issues and are unperturbed, or is the US market still so deeply mired in privacy concerns that every RFID initiative looks potentially dangerous?

Anyone care to jump in?

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The question of “what goes on the tag” has been occupying the list quite a bit this week. Prompted by an enquiry from Helen Jarvis at the University of Kent I wrote a short reply to try and explain my assertion that adding bibliographic data to tags was not necessarily a good idea. My invitation for someone to “tell me I’m an idiot” was enthusiastically accepted by Ivar Thyssen, Export Manager of PV Supa, who suggests that placing any bibliographic data on tags is, in fact, illegal.
I must confess that this came as something of a surprise to me but not as much of a surprise at it will be to those libraries that have already begun adding bibliographic data to tags. We’ll have to see how Ivar’s assertions stand up under scrutiny, since he has been invited to provide backing for this claim by Brian Green Executive Director of the ISBN agency but if he’s right the rules have just changed again.

So why is bibliographic data on tags such a contentious issue? For Ivar it is the books, as well as the orrowers that should not be identifiable.  One may suspect that this concern may be not entirely unconnected with his advocacy of ISO 28560-3 as opposed to the part 2 model adopted by the US and UK, but the issue is still worth further consideration.

Some libraries view RFID tags as being simply a replacement for the barcode. Often it is used because they are implementing self-service and believe that implementing RFID is a pre-requisite for doing so. In reality of course it’s perfectly possible to have self-service without RFID although there are undoubtedly some additional advantages to using it.

Once your items have been RFID tagged it’s only natural to start thinking about what else you could do with them – other than using them as a barcode replacement – and that’s where it all starts to get a bit confusing.

Any library using RFID (or barcodes for that matter) will, by definition, be using a library management system (LMS in the UK, ILS most other places). The LMS/ILS will contain all the data about your items, your staff and your clients. It is this that makes all the decisions about who can borrow which items, whether fines or charges are owed etc. The RFID system simply uses the barcodes or tags to tell the LMS what it is dealing with, and the LMS tells it what to do.

No data is being changed on the tags (except the security data, which is no concern of the LMS anyway) so there’s no need to worry about data synchronisation.

But many librarians, and at least two RFID companies, have begun to think about changing the rules. I had an email from an RFID company only recently which told me that they were advising their clients to add as much bibliographic data as possible to the tags. Another announced yesterday that adding the title of a work to tags was an integral part of their solution – (so they must be a little concerned about Ivar).  I have also seen suggestions, on the list, that we should start adding “date last circulated” or “number of times circulated” to the tags. One can see the attraction of being able to query a shelf of books with an RFID device and find out – without any reference to the LMS – which items should be weeded, replaced or have additional copies purchased.

So there’s a growing momentum for change – and for adding extra data to tags.

I’m not entirely against this. In fact I believe there are many ways in which LMS/ILS providers could significantly improve their offerings by using the tag’s data store, but I think agreement on what data elements we want to use and where on the tags we should store the data is a vital prerequisite. With this in place you have a better chance that, when you buy your next RFID system, it’ll be able to read your tags. That’s the purpose of the UK national profile that we are currently building for ISO 28560-2. More on this later…

All that said I doubt very much that I would include bibliographic data on my own list of data I want to add. Having two sets of data is a management nightmare! For starters how do you decide which of the two (tags and catalogue) is accurate, and how do you keep data synchronised? And, if you decide to change an entry (change of authority form of name for example), you have to make the change in the catalogue and on the tag – which means handling every item.

Most importantly, what benefits will data on tags give you as a librarian? (i.e. how do you plan to use it?) I can see some benefit for the RFID company as it might mean it’s the only way they can display information at the shelf, but at what additional cost (in terms of workload) for you? An alternative would be to have a report generated to extract  data from the catalogue and store it on a stock management device. Then, as you scan your shelves, the unit identifies the items by their barcode number and retrieves the content from its data store. I see no real need for data to also be stored on the items themselves.

But others will have other ideas so – at the risk of being called an idiot again – please let me hear them!

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New alert on Twitter this morning linking to a new story on the Library Technology Guides website:

“Bibliotheca announced non-proprietary “on-the-fly” RFID conversion software that allows libraries equipped with barcodes the flexibility to convert to RFID at the self-check station or book return as patrons complete routine check-out/check-in of library materials. The RFID conversion software helps unburden libraries from the amount of time, labor and cost needed to convert entire collections from barcodes to RFID. Bibliotheca’s flexible, patent-pending BiblioChip conversion software will work with Bibliotheca’s line of self-check stations and book returns, as well as products from other vendors.”

A quick scan of Bibliotheca’s website fails to reveal the original story but hopefully it’s me, not the website that’s up too early in the day.

The solution on offer offers:

• Smooth implementation of new data formats as they evolve
• Simultaneous reading of multiple formats
• Reading/writing of different vendor formats
• Reading/writing of older, non-standard chips

There would seem to be little that has been overlooked in the wish list of most librarians struggling to make sense of emerging standards, competing frequencies, data models and data content and hybrid solutions.

The focus for this operation is self-service. Items are read, re-programmed and processed in one smooth operation at the point of issue or return. A “hybrid” self-service variant will even manage electromagnetic security at the same time. However no mention is made of how other library operattions will interoperate with blank tags for example.

There are a few questions that spring to mind to which the article, and the Bibliotheca website, offer no answers at the moment. Off the top of my head at 7am these include:

• What is the impact on processing time of simultaneously reading and writing multiple formats at the pointm of issue?
• How does the system identify which EM tagged items in a stack it should activate/deactivate?
• How do borrowers know which items have been RFID processed already? (Or do they continue to read barcodes, one at a time forever? In which case what’s the point of RFID?)
• How do shelf reading operations cope with multiple formats – or items that haven’t been borrowed yet?
• How do consortia circulate stock if they’re not using Bibliotheca hardware?

I confess to being a little diappointed that one of the major RFID suppliers has developed a solution that seeks to circumvent a common standard rather than endorse it, particularly as the rest of the UK market is so close to agreement on a national standard. Perhaps the absence of Bibliotheca’s UK representatives (D Tech)  from the January 19th meeting was more significant than I realised at the time?

Whilst appreciating the sales appeal of a “one size fits all” solution, I’m not sure if this solution delivers on that promise. Perhaps things will become clearer soon…

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I realise, even as I write, that the above reference probably only works with dog-lovers in the UK so apologies to what I now discover has rather rapidly become a global audience.

Email this morning from Hong Kong where Corrie Marsh, Associate University Librarian at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, is in the latter stages of implementing a UHF solution. Corrie, whose RFID site can be found  here had been talking to Brian Green of Editeur about standards and such and was directed to the RFID guide (see panel) that Simon Edwards and I produced at the end of last year.

It will be very interesting to see how things progress. Whilst previously the technology was deemed unsuited to close quarter operations – like self-service – because of its much greater range, there have been murmurings about ways of solving that problem – although I have yet to see it working in a library.

There is a great deal of information on the web about the use of UHF in libraries in Singapore and Australia although interestingly one of the companies behind Australian UHF installations has chosen to deploy HF in the UK. Eager to understand how UHF deals with circulation I wrote to one of the Australian libraries that had implemented a UHF solution some time ago asking how they managed it but sadly so far no-one has replied.

That there will be a UHF alternative for libraries seems certain. The question is how should the market respond? Unlike the supply chain – where a tag lifespan need only be 6 months – libraries can and do keep items for many years. Some RFID suppliers have capitalised on librarian’s fears that tags will fail by emphasising the longevity of their tags and whilst this is a factor it pales into insignificance alongside the bigger question posed by UHF. “What if I can’t buy the tags I am using any more?” At least two US and one UK library  have already had to deal with a similar circumstance when the HF tags they were using were withdrawn from the market by their manufacturer.

I think the danger lies in the fact that libraries are a relatively small market. With no agreement on frequencies and data models it has become a small, fragmented market. To be large enough to matter I think we soon have to choose which frequencies, and which standards we are going to use. Then we might be big enough to guarantee future supplies. As a group we may also be able to find ways to advance when new technologies emerge – as they already are, even in the relatively safe world of 13.56MHz tags.

One other point that Corrie mentioned was my “criticism” of RFID suppliers. Which is a shame because I wasn’t trying to be. What I was trying to establish is that there is a gulf of understanding between the RFID innovators and suppliers – who are trying to promote the latest and greatest technologies, – and the librarians trying to provide a service without breaking anything.

It’s no-one’s fault that we are where we are. Or it’s everyone’s. Take your pick and then help to change it.

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