Interesting. It sounds like they don't have that whole bidirectional thing
going right yet. Thanks for the additional info.
1. We are testing out the changes mentioned.
2. We have TechLogic pads on our self-checks and they are wonderful.
The staff pads are Bibliotheca and are weak.
3. We had the gates setup so they would only alarm when people left
the building. This resulted in 1 out of every 100 items with security
turned on to trigger the alarm. We had to change the gate to alarm when
patrons come in the building and leave the building to get them to detect
and alarm at a 75% rate.
I know it makes no sense at all, but Bibliotheca gave the response that
people were moving too fast to properly trigger the alarm.
Directional alarming has a sensor that triggers the entry. It then checks
the security of the items. The gates are either too slow or we need to
require patrons to walk in slow motion when they leave the building.
When you put on Bidirectional, alarming it disables the sensors and checks
for security first.
Either way it is something to be aware of when dealing with Bibliotheca, and their gates.
*Jason Burds*
I.T. Supervisor
Carnegie-Stout Public Library <http://www.dubuque.lib.ia.us/>
(563)589-4229
*Sent:* Thursday, January 15, 2015 2:36 PM
*To:* Jason M. Burds
*Subject:* Re: [Koha] Koha and RFID
Hi Jason,
You are describing some things that suggest to me you have issues with
your implementation. The limitations you are describing are not common to
all RFID implementations.
1. SIP connections flooding your system: Not typical. Sounds like others
on this thread have some ideas for you. This would be a Koha issue and not
an RFID issue.
2. RFID pads are not powerful and require shuffling: This is a problem
withe product you are using. You didn't state whether you were talking
about the pads used by staff or the ones used in the self-check machines.
If staff, I'd harangue Bibliotheca until they get you some pads you are
happy with. If it's the self-check machines....I have heard from other
Bibliotheca customers that their tabletop units don't have good pads. If
they are unsatisfactory, again, harass your vendor until you are
satisfied. Did you put any kind of performance requirement in your RFP?
That's what I do with clients. That way if items aren't getting read as
promised, it is on the vendor to fix it.
3. DVDs/Stingrays/Bidirectional Gates: This makes no sense. I wonder if
you are not understanding something about how direction gates work. If you
have set up your gates s they only alarm when a patron is ENTERING the
library, then the gates will simply stop alarming unless two conditions
exist: the gates detect someone walking into the library and they also
detect an unchecked out item (which may or may not be associated with the
person who is walking through the gates). Gates detect RFID tags up to 18
inches or so in all directions. All the directionality does is control
whether the alarm will sound or not. And, there are two ways to determine
directionality. One is for the gates to set up two seeing eyes (lasers or
whatever) so that when the laser beam is broken in the right order, the
gates know someone walked in. There's another technology used as well
which uses radar. Anyway, this is probably not the reason your DVDs aren't
being detected. Any discs with metal on one side are simply not doing to
get detected. And if you have more than one Stingray on a set of discs
(e.g. books on CD), they will probably conflict with one another and render
all the tags useless.
4. Now, that conforms with my understanding!
Hope the above info helps.
Lori Ayre
We are in the end stages of a long and painful RFID migration. To answer
your question, SIP makes checkouts and check-ins work much faster.
We chose Bibliotheca for our vendor. They do have a Circ manager software
that will connect with SIP and allow for multiple items checking in and
out. Our staff still has to bring up the patrons account in Koha to verify
holds and overdues. There are many bugs with it but overall it functions
most of the time.
Warning about Bibliotheca and Koha
1. SIP connections are tremendous and will eventually lockup your SIP
server with flood messages. We have to restart SIP server every morning,
to clear out log files.
2. RFID pads are not powerful and will disappoint you, expect to have to
shuffle items to get them to read.
3. Gates cannot detect DVD's with Stingray tags when the gate is set to
only alarm on outgoing traffic. You need bidirectional detection. This
may be important on how you tag your collection and how you plan your
implementation.
4. Inventory device needs to run on Windows 7. Good luck with anyone with
a new PC in the last 2 years. OS on inventory device is an old windows
palm OS. We are still waiting for a replacement for one that came bad out
of the box, 2 months after receiving it.
Not to be overly negative about them, they do have a few good support
staff and a programmer David who is excellent.
In addition, we have Tech Logic self-checks that are near perfect on
detection and RFID pads are 50% stronger. Makes me wish we would have
spent the money and went with them 100%.
Good luck and if you have any questions let me know.
Jason Burds
I.T. Supervisor
Carnegie-Stout Public Library
(563)589-4229
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, January 7, 2015 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Koha] Koha and RFID
It would be awesome if all replies to this email could come to the list,
so that we can make a FAQ for the website.
Cheers,
Liz Rea
Post by Keener, NancyOur library is considering RFID in our near future. Are there any Koha
libraries out there using RFID? Does SIP limit RFID functionality? And
finally, what vendor did you choose?
Post by Keener, NancyNancy Keener
Systems Librarian
I.T.O.S.C. Chair
Washoe County Library System
Reno, Nevada
775 327-8347
ea
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