More Technology Than I'm Actually Comfortable Explaining 2: Electric Bungaloo

This post has nothing to do with bungaloos to be honest. I thought I should just break it to you right out so there can be a clean break. What it does involve in RFID tag coding which, while somewhat still a mystery to me, is now making itself more clear.

First and foremost, tags are a bit like a floppy disc or if you don't remember what those were, a CD. If you've burned a CD in the last five years at least (and I'm not referring to literally burning or creating a typical playable audio or video CD) you've probably noticed your computer asking you whether or not you want to make this CD read-only or whether you want to program it to be rewritable storage. This is sort of how RFID coding works. It comes in two flavors, read-only and rewritable.

Now of read-only tags you have two distinctions and those are about the time and origin of the written information. There are standard read-only which are coded by the manufacturer and can only be used to store an identification number unique to the tag but otherwise unrelated to the information of the book it gets stuck to. These can be useful in tandem with a bar-code system that already has the item information coded on it. There are also WORM tags which are read-only eventually, but come to the organization (in this case a library) blank. The library codes information about the book such as it's unique item number and other relevant information but once that initial coding is done, it is permanent.  This means only permanent information can be stored such as bibliographic information, not item location or status which may change with time.

Then there are rewritable tags, the most expensive of the lot, which can hold such temporary information. These get the same initial coding as WORM tags, but allow for further coding if necessary. Typically, the coding functions are password protected or at least partially read-only to maintain the integrity of the information available. The type of information capabilities for a rewritable tag include security functions that can be disabled at checkout or location information that can be used with an automated sorting machine.

That's all I've got for you today folks! Have a good morning!

References

3M. (2013). RFID 301. Retrieved from http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=66666UgxGCuNyXTtnXTtnxfEEVtQEcuZgVs6EVs6E666666--&fn=RFID%20301.pdf

 

American Library Association. (2011, October 10). RFID technology for libraries. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/pla/tools/technotes/rfidtechnology

BarcodesInc. (2013). RFID Buying Guide. Retrieved from http://www.barcodesinc.com/info/buying-guides/rfid.htm