Pierrefonds and Roxboro libraries go high-tech

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

Employees at Pierrefonds and Roxboro’s libraries have quite a job ahead of them. Over the next few months, they will have to affix radio frequency identification (RFID) stickers to each item in the 220,000-piece collection, as part of the new microchip identification system unveiled last week.

“It’s really high technology,” said library division head Louise Zampini. “In a fraction of seconds, you can check out 10 books, three CDs, and four magazines, all at the same time.”

Library users will be able to place their RFID-outfitted selection on a special self-serve pad adjacent to a touch-screen computer and insert their library cards into the reader. The system automatically reads and registers all the bibliographical information from the microchip, and the bookworm is ready to head home. The system also automatically logs items brought back to the library as ‘returned,’ without anyone lifting a finger.

According to Zampini, this system will allow the librarians to spend less time scanning the bar codes on individual items at checkout and registering them when they are returned, which means they will have more time to serve library patrons. Pierrefonds and Roxboro will be the first municipal libraries in Quebec to use this technology.

“It’ll mean less hours for the front desk, but these hours will be invested in service. We’ll serve you instead of doing the manual things,” Zampini said.

The RFIDs will also make doing inventory much easier and quicker: instead of scanning each individual item, library employees will be able to move up and down the rows using a special scanner that will even notify them if a book or other item has been wrongly shelved.

With plans to double the space of the Pierrefonds library – including a café and more sitting areas for library users – Zampini said the microchip system will allow library workers to pay more attention to the patrons, even with the expansion.

For those worried about anyone tracking their movements through the RFIDs in their books, Zampini said not to worry: while the items will all contain the microchips, the library cards will remain barcode-only. So, the library might know you’re reading Love and War, but that’s about it. “The chips only contain the bibliographical information,” Zampini said.

The libraries will start off with one self-service station, and then add more later on. Zampini said Pierrefonds and Roxboro are working to have the entire collection outfitted with the RFIDs by this summer, in time for the Millennium project — an integrated Web- and Java-based system that allows library users to view entire collections of other connected libraries – which all City of Montreal borough libraries have or will hook up to.

Zampini said the RFID microchip system carries a $500,000 price tag.