RFIDX solutions in action

The English Faculty Library is part of the University of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire and contains nearly 60,000 monographs and 95 current periodicals.

During an average term day there are around 550 issues and a similar number of returns. So it’s no wonder the 3M™ SelfCheck System V-Series has proven to be very popular with the 2000 students and faculty library users.

“RFID has made a huge difference, especially as our loans have increased by 50 percent since we moved to our new library building,” said Sandra Cromey, the English Faculty Librarian (now at Oxford Brookes).

The English Faculty have also been using the DLA to great effect for stock management, improving inventory management and cost reduction. Sandra and Shyani Siriwardene were keen to utilise the stock management applications of RFID together with the already successful implementation of its circulation and security features.

The DLA was already being used to track “missing” and mis-shelved items, and inventory control functions were first used in 2005. A complete stock check was identified as a priority, previously taking the equivalent of 300 hours* of staff time. The decision was also taken to perform an annual inventory exercise, using no additional staff.

In 2006 the DLA scanned 68,217 items in 37 hours, barcode errors were reduced to 60 with 9,615 duplicate records apparent. In 2007 the DLA scanned 69,529 items in 40.5 hours, barcode errors were reduced to 2, with only 200 duplicate records.

Shyani states “As a result of DLA scanning, the English Faculty has now reduced their barcode errors to 0 and duplicate record numbers are realistic and are known problems".

*8 casual staff, 7 hours per day for a minimum of 5 weeks, plus contributions from permanent staff.

To read more about this case study go to www.3m.com/uk/library.