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The RFID in Libaries Standard (ISO 28560) moved to Stage 50.20 today.  In other words, the Standard is about two months away from being finalized.

Why do you care?  Because this standard is going to be the basis for a U.S. Data Model standard.  This is what we’ve been waiting for. Finally, a standard that defines how to organize information on a library RFID tag including recommendations for what data elements can be used and which ones are mandatory.

I’ve been remiss about posting to this blog because I have some blogging responsibilities elsewhere, namely os-ol.org and rscel.evergreen-ils.org.

Two online tidbits led me to check in with the folks at SirsiDynix about what they are telling their customers about the viability of moving to an open source ILS. Officially, SirsiDynix states that "we believe that competition is good...Two online tidbits led me to check in with the folks at SirsiDynix about what they are telling their customers about the viability of moving to an open source ILS.  Officially, SirsiDynix states that "we believe that competition is good.

A new state-of-the-art resource sharing software has been in the works at Equinox (with sponsorship from ohioNET) for some time now.  And while it isn't ready for download, it did cross a new threshold recently.  As of August 2, 2010, FulfILLment was established as its own open source project (as opposed to a piece of Evergreen).

I was recently interviewed by David Carr, a freelancer who wrote an article for Baseline Magazine.  I was pleased to see that the quote he included from our discussion was actually complete and in context.  Seems so often you end up reading the words you said...but somehow the context gets twisty.

Anyway, I thought it was a good article.

I've been focused recently on developments in UHF technology and how it might help libraries improve on the RFID products we currently use (which are  based on HF tags).  My interest, of course, is having something that fits our library applications best and if UHF is a better fit, I'd rather know now than later after we have an even greater investment in the HF technology.

I'm heading off to Colorado today to talk with a library consortium about some of the exciting opportunities for expanding their services by taking advantage of open source technologies.   What I'll be talking about is the openings created when a library migrates to an open source library system product like Koha or Evergreen.

Here's my starter list of the things library consortia can be (okay, I mean should be) doing:

I had the thought recently that libraries are like pantries. Sure, they are full of things we get at Costco (just like everyone else) but once they are in our pantry, they feel different somehow. Once they are in my pantry, they are mine. Even though that can of tuna sitting on my shelf was one of hundreds of identical tuna cans at the grocery store, it feels special to me now that it is on my pantry shelf (I've also got a Little Prince vibe going here but I'm going to try to stick to this pantry metaphor if I can).

If you care about physical delivery of library material (and I do), you may want to catch this webinar being produced by NISO.

It’s in the Mail: Improving the Physical Delivery of Library Resources
May 12, 2010
1:00 - 2:30 p.m. (Eastern Time)

Equinox has been talking about it for quite some time but there appears to be actual movement on a true open source ILL module for linking not just open source library systems but all ILS products (pending some standards compliance issues I imagein).

The name of the product is FulfILLment and the website says "it will provide library users seamless access to materials owned by libraries using FullfILLment—no matter which integrated library system his or her library uses."