| Tags - Now Available at Silkeborg Public Library |  |
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  You are here: Home  Library Information Chip Tags
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One tag including antenna about 6 x 4 centimetres long What are tags? Tags are used for labelling goods in industry and retailing. For example, tags can be sewn into items of clothing and used in the sorting process in large industrial laundries. In the future tags will be attached to goods in retailing which will make it possible to handle inventory control and sale by simply registering the active signal in the tag. A tag is durable and can be embedded in the wrapping of a product about which it contains information.
At the Library The demands of the library when it comes to handling buying and lending procedures are - technically speaking - much like the control sought in industry and retailing. We want to be able to register when the material is purchased, lent and returned to the library - the latter being a unique requirement. Most of the computer system developers have introduced tag-based solutions for libraries during the past several years. However, the wait for a technology, which was stable, durable and standardized, has delayed the introduction of the RF-tags (Radio Frequency). Among other things the frequency area - the size of the area in which the tag can receive a signal - had to be determined in order to prevent conflicts with the frequencies used by cell phones. Tags used with library systems make use of the Z39.70 protocol to communicate with the computer system. The tag is programmed to contain information about the unique number of the book as well as a special code, which registers if the anti-theft alarm has not been deactivated or if the material has not been checked out properly. If the material is not in use, the signal remains active for approximately 40 years. Seen from a library perspective this must be regarded as being more than adequate since most public libraries hardly desire to have books that go unused for 40 years. One supplementary advantage is the ability to find misplaced material by using a handheld scanner, which uses an acoustic or visual signal to locate the material. The Future Tags will - when the standardization has been completed - be the most ideal way of labelling goods and library material. 
The antenna is coiled up in a spiral and is approximately 40 centimetres long. At present the antenna of the tag is able to pick up signals at a distance of two to three metres. This means that the actual registering of a patron checking out a book can be done simply as the patron leaves the library when the power of the signal, the buffer capacity etc. are ideal. The patron only has to identify herself digitally by using a card containing a magnetic strip or a bar code - or in the future perhaps by just using her personal identification card, which will contain another tag.
Most likely the tags will - just like they have in retailing - become an integrated part of the product - that means it will be embedded (or implanted into the cover of a book) and can thereafter be programmed locally in accordance with the purpose of the tag.
Read more about the conversion from bar codes to tags in The Intelligent Book. Links in English and Danish about RFID
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