E-Newsletter - March 2010 Great News We have produced this special edition newsletter to share some great news about significant developments for the use of RFID in libraries. We are also challenging all stakeholders to see this as the beginning of a new era for the technology in the library community. Having an RFID system in a library is at the base level, but there is an opportunity to go far beyond this now. Libraries should be able to reduce costs or increase functionality. Vendors should see the market grow to be many times its current size. So read on and see what lies behind all this potential. Please note that Paul Chartier (Managing Director of Convergent Software Limited) is also Co-Project Editor of the ISO 28560-2 standard. Photo by jhoweaa ISO 28560-2 breaks new grounds ISO 28560-2 Information and documentation - RFID in libraries: Part 2: Encoding based on ISO/IEC 15962 (to give it its formal title) offers libraries a flexible scheme to libraries for encoding data on an RFID tag. Already the use of RFID for libraries is by far the largest implementation of the technology - far exceeding any applications in the retail sector. Imagine the prospects of all the library RFID implementations benefiting from additional open systems features. An announcement from the commiittee chairman on the ISO 28560 support website http://biblstandard.dk/rfid/docs/summary.htm clearly indicates that the standard is technically stable. ISO still needs to follow some procedures before the standard starts its final two-month YES/NO ballot, but the library community can now be assured that no technical changes will be made. This gives vendors and users an opportunity and sound foundation to move forward now to plan and support the standards. We address issues for each stakeholder in the articles below. Don't just read about your prime area of interest, see what we have to say about other stakeholders. RFID system and equipment vendors are on a countdown... ...to having a strategy and products to support the new standard. They face both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is that the open systems approach of ISO 28560-2 will remove the safety net of offering a proprietary solution. In future, vendors will offer the same interoperable standard and need to compete at the solution level. They will even need to address the opportunity that integration with different devices and systems bring. Convergent Software Limited is at the forefront of addressing integration and is offering fully compliant software that has the following modules: - A template builder that allows optional data to be selected and arranged in the sequence of the user. - A full encoder module that supports a variety of tag types. - A comprehensive decoder that also provides a diagnosis of encoding errors. - A data editor that allows data to be modified, deleted, or new data to be added. With less than 60 days to approval of ISO 28560-2, our integration software package can significantly reduce the time-to-market requiring only the minimum of integration. For companies that want to control their own development, our benchmark software and service package helps such vendors to minimise errors during their development process. To see how we can assist any vendor to meet market requirements contact us at library-vendors@convergent-software.co.uk to arrange a private discussion on using our software to accelerate your time to market in a reliable manner. Photo by dullhunk Libraries need to start planning for ISO 28560-2... ...now that the standard is technically stable. For libraries with an established RFID system there is no need to convert all stock. But that does not mean that the new standard cannot be implemented. Most RFID system vendors have committed to support the new standard in parallel to their existing proprietary system. Technically, it should be possible to distinguish between tags encoded to either encoding rule. By encoding new stock to comply with ISO 28560-2, some application benefits can be achieved and the proportion of tags compliant with the new standard will increase over time. Also, it might be possible to convert the encoding on the tag during a returns process and therefore accelerate the migration to ISO 28560-2. None of this conversion process should require new tags. Libraries that intend to install RFID for the first time should seriously consider specifying ISO 28560-2 as a requirement in their RFID system tender document for the system vendor, tag converter and book supplier to fully support. Notice should also be given to the Library Management System supplier that the library is also expecting support for new open system solutions. Convergent Software Limited is developing a set of software tools exclusively for libraries. The basic software supports full encoding that allows "virtual" tags to be produced for planning purposes. The software is not just for planning. It has a long term use because it can be used to prove that the encoding on the tag is compliant, even to diagnose the type of error. If a library adds the optional RFID encoder device that we are recommending, prototype tags can be produced and Quality Control applied automatically. Contact us at libraries@convergent-software.co.uk for more information. Photo by katykat Book suppliers and jobbers need to implement ISO 28560-2... ...solutions for early adopters among their library suppliers. Where libraries are using different proprietary RFID solutions, the library supplier has to support each of these schemes with different software, even different hardware. The introduction of ISO 28560-2 can change all of this: in future it could be possible to use the same hardware, same tags, same software. How come? The software that is required to encode data compliant with ISO 28560-2 should be able to support the selection and arrangement of any of the optional data elements. It goes without saying that mandatory rules need to be followed. This selection and arrangement has been called a data profile. Some countries are developing national profiles, but even these have optional elements. Our software can support any permutation of optional data elements using a tool that we call a Template Builder. If different libraries require different data - even between types of loan item - then calling up the appropriate template can be the simplest way to meet different customers' requirements. Convergent Software Limited is presently developing tools to help with this process. We will have a book supplier version of our software available that includes a Template Builder and Data Builder (encoder). We will also make our Template Builder available to individual libraries so that they can prepare their template and send it to their book supplier to prepare the encoding. Some libraries will want to adopt the new standard at the earliest opportunity - some have even already started now that the ISO 28560-2 ballot is underway. So, to be ready to support all your customers, contact us at supply-chain@convergent-software.co.uk to discuss how our solutions can help. And finally... Please pass this newsletter to a colleague so that they can become aware of the positive changes that ISO 28560-2 can bring. Bookmark our website www.convergent-software.co.uk where we will continue to provide supporting information for ISO 28560-2. Also don't forget that we would like to hear from you about anything associated with ISO 28560-2 at info@convergent-software.co.uk.