Paris to Tag 3 Million Books

Once again, libraries are at the forefront of the asset tracking technology using RFID. The city of Paris, France, has announced plans to implement RFID at 42 of its library branches. The libraries intend to use RFID to better manage circulation and inventory, as well as to improve security. Also, at those branches with larger numbers of patrons, the city plans to implement RFID-enabled self-service checkout and return facilities to free up staff from the circulation desk, allowing them to better serve patrons in other areas of the library. The original plan calls for at least 3 million RFID tags, as well as kiosks, readers, portals and self-checkout systems that allow customers to check out and return items, and in some cases pay fees and fines, without staff assistance.

The Paris Library system will use France's national standard for RFID formatting in library book tags. This means if a patron requests a book from a library in Paris at an RFID-enabled library in Lille, the same tracking system can be used by both libraries to track the book. France is one of four countries that have established national standards for RFID data formats, and is therefore a leader in RFID implementation. National laboratories and the retail supply chain in France are already RFID enabled.