Search Skills Blog

     For this blog, I had to look up an article pertaining to a current trend in the Library Technology/Science field. After a little while of searching, I came across the article titled "RFID Standards" by Lori Bowen Ayre. This article was published in July of 2012. This article discusses the new trend of RFID tags on library books. I found this article using the EBSCOhost Academic Premiere online database provided by Ivy Tech. RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification. Many libraries in America are trying to make the switch to RFID tags for their books.
     Rather than having to put a magnetic strip in the books and use a large alarm system such as gates, libraries will be able to track the exact location of where the library book is at and when it was checked out. The main issues with RFID tags is that for a little while, there weren't  any standards for using them, and a lot of libraries trying to integrate them into their system before the standards were created, causing some disarray in the circulation department. Now that standards have been set, many libraries have decided to give RFID tags a shot. Currently, neither the library that I used to work at nor the Ivy Tech library has decided to use these to the best of my knowledge. Personally, I think this will be a very effective and innovative way to track library books.
     Right now this trend is off to a rough start, but that isn't uncommon for new forms of library technology. I remember as a kid when my library first got electronic gates, and that didn't take off right away either. I think now that standards have been put in place, this trend will become commonplace in all libraries in due time.