Archive for the ‘Trends to watch’ Category
Friday, October 19th, 2007
From the RFID Connections newsletter:California Research Bureau Notice
In response to repeated RFID legislation offerings in the state of California, a California Research Bureau RFID Advisory Committee has been established to investigate issues surrounding RFID. While the draft legislation in the past two years has focused on identification documents and RFID, the report appears to have a broad scope and will discuss RFID in a general sense. The Chairman, Dr. Chris Marxen is collecting written comments through October 30, 2007. If your company has an interest in the success of RFID, and would like to submit comments, please send them to cmarxen(at)library.ca.gov.
Written Comments no later than October 30, 2007.
Many of you will recall that several libraries in California in the last 5 years have had strenuous public outcry about moving to RFID.
Posted in General, Legislation, Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Thursday, October 11th, 2007
I recently presented this information at a conference, and thought I’d toss it out here. Probably not news to anyone, but just in case it’s helpful - or if anyone wants to start a conversation around what I presented.
Polaris User Group Conference, October 2007
Margaret Hazel, Eugene Public Library
General RFID industry status:
Moving from a gee-whiz cool new technology to more settled use of it as a tool for a variety of purposes, including inventory control, identification verification, toll road payment verification, pharmaceutical safety, seals on imported goods, and sensors for tracking temperature, humidity, shock, and light.
Library-specific trends & developments:
- Moving towards tag protocol and content standards, as recommended in the soon-to-be released NISO document. Our own Louise Schaper at Fayetteville is a member of the developing team. An international data model recommendation is also underway.
- Moving away from vendors recommending as a primary solution for security purposes
- Vendors continue to explore ways to alternately secure media, while allowing RFID self-check; magnetic lockboxes around the case, cases with RFID-unlocking tabs, etc.
- Continuing use of barcodes, despite early predictions that RFID would spell the end of barcode usage.
- Continuing development of RFID products by integrated library systems, such as Polaris’ ExpressCheck.
- Exploration of supply chain tagging, and use of one tag through the life of the item.
Posted in General, Libraries, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007
Since there is much talk in library RFID circles about how we can broaden the use of RFID tags from just in-library use to further up and down the supply chain, from printers to distributors to libraries to interlibrary loan to discards/recycling, the report summarized in this press release may be of interest to us all.http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/rfidsecurity.html
To quote:“The new NIST publication focuses on RFID applications for asset management, tracking, matching, and process and supply chain control. Its list of recommended practices for ensuring the security and privacy of RFID systems includes: firewalls that separate RFID databases from an organization’s other databases and information technology (IT) systems;
encryption of radio signals when feasible;
authentication of approved users of RFID systems;
shielding RFID tags or tag reading areas with metal screens or films to prevent unauthorized access;
audit procedures, logging and time stamping to help in detecting security breaches; and
tag disposal and recycling procedures that permanently disable or destroy sensitive data. “
Some of these recommendations would be pretty hard to implement in a library, since we are working with hundreds to thousands of patrons and public access to our buildings. Many would need to have the cooperation of vendors.
Posted in General, Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Thursday, December 7th, 2006
Leif Andresen, Projectleader NWI Data Model for use of RFID in libraries Chair Danish Standards S24 - Information and Documentation, posted this to the RFID_LIB email list this morning:
“Development of an international standard Data Model for use of RFID in libraries is now started
National experts from Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States together with representatives from EDItEUR and EBF/IBF (European Booksellers Federation and International Booksellers Federation) have had the initial meeting concerning development of an international standard Data Model for use of RFID in libraries. The work is initiated from ISO TC46/SC4 - Information and Documentation. Technical Interoperability - after a ballot with 100 percent approval.
At the initial meeting the experts discussed all aspects of the future standard and agreed on developing a set of statements as basis for the new standard. This set of statements will be published for public comment in beginning of 2007. All key players are invited to comment on the statements.
Beside the data model itself, the statements will also address topics such as privacy, frequency and migration from already implemented data models. At the meeting was reached consensus about high flexibility in the data model as well as the need for well defined profiles.
Actual information and key documents are published at the project website http://www.bs.dk/standards/rfid/ ”
Sounds interesting! Comments are turned on, by the way, so please do feel free to interact….
-Margaret
Posted in General, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Thursday, December 7th, 2006
Leif Andresen, Projectleader NWI Data Model for use of RFID in libraries Chair Danish Standards S24 - Information and Documentation, posted this to the RFID_LIB email list this morning:
“Development of an international standard Data Model for use of RFID in libraries is now started
National experts from Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States together with representatives from EDItEUR and EBF/IBF (European Booksellers Federation and International Booksellers Federation) have had the initial meeting concerning development of an international standard Data Model for use of RFID in libraries. The work is initiated from ISO TC46/SC4 - Information and Documentation. Technical Interoperability - after a ballot with 100 percent approval.
At the initial meeting the experts discussed all aspects of the future standard and agreed on developing a set of statements as basis for the new standard. This set of statements will be published for public comment in beginning of 2007. All key players are invited to comment on the statements.
Beside the data model itself, the statements will also address topics such as privacy, frequency and migration from already implemented data models. At the meeting was reached consensus about high flexibility in the data model as well as the need for well defined profiles.
Actual information and key documents are published at the project website http://www.bs.dk/standards/rfid/ ”
Sounds interesting! Comments are turned on, by the way, so please do feel free to interact….
-Margaret
Posted in General, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 12th, 2006
Chaired by Dr. Vinod Chachra of VTLS, the group will focus on interoperability of tags and hardware across vendors. He also emphasized that they must encourage “vertical application isolation among different industries. In other words, we do not want CDs purchased at a store to trigger library security gates and library books to set off alarms at grocery stores. Most importantly, we must achieve these goals while protecting personal privacy.”
The NISO announcement states that the product of this group will be a “best practices document [that]will form a part of a larger input document on U.S, requirements for the ISO TC 46 working group developing a standard data model for encoding information on the tag. The group will also coordinate with American Library Association/Book Industry Study Group working group around the interaction of technology and privacy issues. ”
A post to the SYS_LIB list by Cynthia Hodgson of NISO also says that for more information, you can contact NISO at nisohq@niso.org. Interestingly, this announcement was not posted by her to RFID_Lib, though someone else cross-posted it there.
Good to know the work is in progress. We’ll try to keep it in our sights to report on developments.
Posted in General, Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Thursday, February 2nd, 2006
Library Journal is reporting that the Public Library Association criticized the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee’s proposed “Guidelines for Implementing RFID in Libraries.” PLA representatives said they felt the guidelines would inhibit the use of particular applications.
Posted in Libraries, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Thursday, February 2nd, 2006
Courtesy of the LITA blog, the write up for the LITA Standards Issues Group program on New Standars, which includes and update on RFID standards, is available at http://litablog.org/#RFID.
Posted in Trends to watch | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 26th, 2005
An article in “Today’s News” at Library Journal says that Gwinnet County, GA Public Library is going to stop circulating videos due to the high percentage of theft. Putting items on reserve didn’t work. A CD/DVD jukebox was too expensive. They found their CD/DVDs weren’t compatible with their RFID self-check.
I know that some ways of handling the “media issue” are forthcoming from RFID vendors. The whole expense of it all makes me ponder, however. I see an increasing trend towards on-demand digital media use. When Stanford starts offering its lectures via commercial MP3 outlets, and the new ipod can handle video, and cell phones can download TV shows, how soon will it be before the public expects the library to handle the latest formats?
Would libraries be better spending their money on emerging formats rather than tagging media which is heading towards obsolescence? It’s not a completely unrealistic scenario. The Shifted Librarian and Tame the Web do an excellent job of discussing how and why libraries can use ipods and podcasting. Some libraries are already doing using this stuff.
If MPOW were still considering RFID I would definitely do some cost comparisons. Yes, there will be difficulty with the availability of content in the new formats and there remains the question of what to do with your legacy media. The Gwinnet County PL approach of selling the legacy media is one way of dealing with that — at least the money could go towards the new content. When RFID media tags are still so pricey you’ve got to at least consider the length of time you’re going to be using this investment.
Posted in Libraries, ROI, Trends to watch | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, October 12th, 2005
There’s a great article over at CommsDesign about RFID discussions at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The organization is calling for industry self-policing when it comes to privacy.
A postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Research on Computation and Society interviewed in the article calls for a “RFID Bill of Rights.” Those of you paying close attention will note the simularities between this proposed Bill and the best practices already being promulgated by ALA and the BISG as well as the Ontario Privacy Commissioner.
Posted in Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 28th, 2005
Eric Chabrow over at Information Week is reporting on a company making plastic RFID chips in the 13.56MHz range.
The company, OrganicID, has stated that it expects to bring the price of chips down below the 5 cent price point often mentioned in articles as the price at which item-level tagging will become feasible for commercial applications.
Posted in Trends to watch | No Comments »
Monday, May 16th, 2005
Anita over at the RFID Weblog has a good article regarding an initiative by UCLA researchers to use RFID for managing copyright on CD/DVD.
Watch this one folks. It’s going to have big implications for digital libraries & archives if its successful.
Posted in Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Monday, April 4th, 2005
Library Journal is reporting on a February 25 meeting held by the RFID Working Group, which is jointly sponsored by the American Library Association and the Book Industry Study Group.
As always, privacy was a major part of the conversation. It was noted that there is a continuing need for education about the issues in the library community. Our old friend David Molnar discussed the risks and noted that increased standardization, while very necessary, also increases the vulnerability of the tags.
This is going to be a big concern as libraries and book publishers and sellers continue to work together on RFID. Each constituency is concerned with moving books around. As books move through the information chain, how will we deal with the chips? From an economic perspective it makes sense to use the same chips for every industry. Why add labor and additional chips at each point? Libraries could just use the chips already inserted into the book during publication.
Yet, the need for protecting individuals engenders the need for “kill” functions to stop tags once they leave the warehouse or bookstore.
It’s a tricky balance and one where I think we should err on the side of caution. I seem to recall that there is a type of tag which can be put to sleep rather than being killed outright and this may provide the neccessary middle ground.
Posted in Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Monday, March 21st, 2005
Color me skeptical. RFIDwasher is a soon to be released tool which claims to locate RFID tags and “destroy them forever.” No word on when this little baby will be released. I’m too afraid of spam to register to be notified of its availability.
Tags can be write-protected and locked against tampering so this thing would have to circumvent that.
Posted in Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 9th, 2005
The transcript and report on the workshop the Federal Trade Commission held on RFID in June 2004 has (finally) been released. Enjoy. There is much discussion regarding the privacy issues.
Posted in Legislation, Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 8th, 2005
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has updated its RFID information page providing links to recent developments in the library world and a report on the RFID panel at CLA.
Heads up to those of you in the vincinity of Berkeley, CA: The EFF is encouraging attendence at the Berkeley City Council meeting today and the Board of Library Trustees tomorrow so that community members may demand an investigation of a proposed restructuring plan and the budgetary implications of the RFID purchase. They provide a link to a flyer created by Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense.
BOLDs’ flyer is fairly extreme. In its unnuanced view of the implications of RFID it implies that RFID self-check machines will result in longer lines. It also ties the staff layoffs to the purchase of the technology — which has not been documented in any report I’ve seen. It’s entirely possible that the layoffs would have occured anyway given California’s current fiscal environment.
The language it uses (ex. “Director Griffen is sinking her talons into your civil liberties”) is inflammatory. Jackie Griffen has a stellar reputation for upholding civil liberties in her work with the Intellectual Freedom Committee of the California Library Association.
I’m thinking some public education programs and discussion forums will be in Berkeley PL’s future.
Posted in Libraries, Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | Comments Off
Thursday, December 2nd, 2004
Yup. It’s a trend. Like Zebra, Texas Instruments has a multiprotocol reader. Yenra reports that the TI S4100 Multi-Function Reader (MFR) Module
accepts all ISO/IEC 14443 and ISO/IEC 15693 standards-compliant 13.56 MHz RFID transponders, while providing an easy migration path to support current tags not fully compliant to these standards.
Firmware can be adjusted down to the protocol level. In plain English, that means you can keep your hardware when the standards evolve. Cool.
So. We all know what’s possible. Librarians who want to protect their investment in RFID should be asking for scalability in their RFID architectures.
I recall some vendors on the CLA panel saying their companies were committed to upgradability.
Posted in Trends to watch | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 1st, 2004
I don’t often report on non-library related RFID happenings but this one struck a cord with me. The U.S. government is planning RFID & biometric passports and the ACLU is, naturally, protesting.
It makes me consider the oft cited example of people-tracking within Library RFID — that of the unsuspecting person carrying the Qur’an getting nabbed at the airport because the book’s RFID tag has been hotlisted. The notion of a library book as security risk pales in comparison with the RFID passport.
For the record, I am neither pro or con on RFID. I try to use this forum to look at the technology from all perspectives. My point with the ACLU link, is to provide a wider context. Those folks who protest RFID tags in libraries need to protest RFID tags everywhere (and I’m sure they do). Library tags are merely a drop in the privacy threat bucket.
Posted in Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Monday, November 29th, 2004
BIGresearch and Artafact LLC have a syndicated report which looks at consumer awareness of RFID. They did an initial survey of 8000 people in 09/2004 and will be doing another report in 12/2004. According to them, most people still haven’t even heard of RFID. The press release says that most RFID aware adults get their information from the Internet and nearly two-thirds of them are concerned about the potential for privacy abuse and no source was recognized by them as a resource for good information. Government sources are not deemed trustworthy.
The RFID industry is keeping track of attitudes regarding privacy. What isn’t clear is whether or not they view privacy issues as a technological or communication issue. I predict that spin will come before secure chips.
Posted in Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Thursday, November 18th, 2004
Nokia has partnered with VeriSign to develop consumer applications for the RFID enabled cell phone. How long until a library RFID vendor makes this possible in our applications?
Consider the privacy implications when every cell phone is a RFID reader. Will your system be secure??
Posted in Trends to watch | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 9th, 2004
Zebra technologies has released two RFID printer/encoders which can handle multiple standards. Now, this is in the commercial RFID realm, thus focused on that class of standard. But its an indication of what can be done — and what we should demand — from the library RFID vendors. The Zebra encoders also come with a cost-free upgrade to support future standards as they emerge. Current and forward interoperability is a great concept.
Posted in Trends to watch | No Comments »
Friday, October 29th, 2004
The Kent District Public Library has posted their RFP for RFID (scroll down past the fold).
Speaking of the RFP process, there is a new tool in the works which may make this task a bit easier for libraries. openrfp.com has an automatic RFP generator which is free to libraries. From their mission statement:
We do this by developing and maintaining a database of functional descriptors for library operations and technical processing, linking them to vendor product capabilities using a structured vocabulary. Libraries can examine vendor software capabilities against their specific needs.
The say they’re vendor neutral. OpenRFP makes its profit by taking a percentage of any signed contract. They currently don’t have many vendors participating, however. It’s one to watch as it may prove useful once it reaches critical mass.
Posted in Libraries, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 19th, 2004
CNET weighs in on library RFID. It’s mostly the same old, same old. Of note: they mention the BISG and ALA RFID best practices, saying they have been released. I hadn’t yet seen this anywhere, although I did mention it in my 7/2/2004 post with a promise to scan and post my print copy. I didn’t do it. I’m horrible. A thousand lashes with a wet noodle for me.
I did a bit of poking around on the BISG site and found a ccompleted draft had been posted. On August 18. I wonder why ALA hasn’t made any big noises about it. It may have been announced on their Intellectual Freedom email list, but I’m not a subscriber (soon to be rectified, you can be assured dear reader). It hasn’t been mentioned on the Office of Intellectual Freedom’s RFID page nor has it garnered a link on the ALA RFID Fact Sheet. Perhaps we’ll hear something when the guidelines are ratified.
The other noteworthy part of the CNET article is the goals attributed to Vinod Chachra of VTLS
The real shakeup could come many years from now, when RFID completely transforms the way libraries operate, if you buy into Chachra’s grand plan. He envisions a day when libraries completely do away with the time-tested Dewey Decimal classification system, opting instead for a sort of organized chaos governed by the vigilant and unblinking eye of RFID.
Never going to happen. Somebody please explain the priciples of serendipity and collocation to this man!
Posted in General, Media Coverage, Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | Comments Off
Tuesday, October 19th, 2004
The Packaging Program and Robert E. Kennedy Library at Cal Poly State
University, San Luis Obispo, California, cooperatively developed an
online survey designed to collect information with regards to the
implementation of RFID systems in libraries. This survey is aimed to
draw information with regards to the performance of such systems
already in place and expectations from those being planned. For the
success of this survey, we would like to get as many libraries to
respond as possible. The survey is located at
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB223U6TM8Z7D . You are
qualified to partake in this survey if you have been or are involved
with any aspect of the RFID based technology at your library.
Please follow the above link and take the survey. A copy of the survey
results will be sent to all participating libraries, RFID listserv, and
LITA-L listserv. For any questions, comments or concerns relating to
this survey or topic, please contact Dr. Jay Singh, Assistant
Professor, at jasingh@calpoly.edu.
PLEASE RESPOND BY NOV. 1ST, 2004
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Friday, October 8th, 2004
RFID journal reports that the Federal Trade Commission responded to queries by Democratic Senator Bill Nelson (Fla.). Their jurisdiction is limited to unfair or deceptive commercial practices — in other words, they will intervene if a company abuses personal information gathered from RFID. Nelson had asked what steps the FTC is taking to regulate RFID and Deborah Majoras, FTC chair, pointed to the last June’s workshop.
The commission will be releasing a report based on the workshop that will have some guidelines.
Posted in Legislation, Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Thursday, September 30th, 2004
Eweek has a great report about the RFID standardardization discussion at the EPCglobal show. EPCglobal, you will recall, is the outgrowth of MIT’s RFID lab. It develops standards. While the article isn’t directly about library RFID, it provides a who’s who of players in the emerging RFID security market. Now Verisign is getting in on the action. I get a sense that the security flaws within the wireless communication and on the chips may soon be addressed.
More telling is the industry’s desire to “overcome RFID resistance” by coming up with privacy standards. Funny how the motivation is to sell rather than to do the right thing. It matters not, however. As long as the privacy/security issues are settled, who cares what motivates? Though it does make me want to ensure third party scrutinization of whatever solutions emerge.
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Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004
The FCC is holding a workshop on RFID on October 7.
The workshop looks fairly pro-RFID development. They are examining “regulatory barriers.” Seems like Senator Nelson’s questions to the FCC regarding legislative juridiction may be moot if the FCC has no interest/intention to regulate.
Posted in Legislation, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004
I meant to post this in August when I first heard about it. RFID Journal scooped me in reporting that U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) has gone to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with a list of questions about RFID. Somebody also informed me that he sent a similiar list of questions to the FCC, but I seem to have misplaced my notes on that.
Nelson wants to know what jurisdiction these two organizations have over regulating RFID and what they have done to stop abuses such as the Wal-Mart Gillette razor incident.
Posted in Legislation, Privacy Issues, Trends to watch | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004
PhysOrg.com reports that Cathexis Innovations Inc. has launched a beta version of a Bluetooth RFID reader dubbed IDBlue.
The pen-sized reader works with passive 13.56MHz tags.
Posted in Trends to watch | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 25th, 2004
From Dow Jones Newswire:
UPM and NBD Use RFID to Track Books
Finnish forestry company UPM-Kymmene Oyj announced Dutch book supplier NBD Biblion will apply radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to all new books. The use of RFID will allow the companies to automatically track books in libraries. Under the deal, UPM will provide 50% of the tags, with more than one million RFID tags delivered already. [thanks Beth @ privacyrights.org]
More information [thanks Lori]
This is definitely a trend to watch. Some North American book jobbers are also including RFID tags in books, although only by library request. Examples which come to mind are: Blackwells, Baker & Taylor.
Posted in Books, Privacy Issues, Trends to watch, Vendor News | No Comments »