Re: the topic though, it’s funny how little old ladies do all this low-key asshole behavior and we mostly just find it adorable. “Nawww, grandma defaced a library book / held up the line looking for a 10c coupon / formed the core of electoral support for fascism / falsely accused someone of hitting her parked car out of boredom! They broke the mold when they made her!”
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RFID?
Holy overengineering, Batman!
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Hmm, that part seems okay. You drop your stack of books in front of the machine and it reads all the tags in one shot, without having to jiggle each book bar code in front of a laser reader. (And the security scanners at the door can do the same to make sure that everything is checked out.)
Old people in general:
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Except the bar code is already on the book and just involves printing rather than inserting an RFID.
Perhaps the simpler solution is to RFID every pen and pencil and have the scanner at the entrance to the library ping if someone with a bus pass and a pen or pencil comes in. Then remove the pencil or pen from the OAP…
Should be safe enough as long as it’s not:
If you can get the door scanner to scan my library card and the books and automatically mark them out to me, that would actually be really useful.
The RFID is question is just a little sticker, like the anti-shoplifting ones. Also, the ISBN code won’t help for inventory purposes. They need a unique id for every copy of the same book.
The check-out machine provides a slip with the due date for each item, and it’s a solid commitment to the script that “you have checked out this book and you will return it by this date”. Also, how does the security scanner know which card to assign the books to if multiple people exit at the same time? Plus the embarrassment if the checkout doesn’t work due to too many late fines, too many items checked out, expired card, etc. Being notified by the door alarm is a rather hostile user experience, no?
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Tsk, bother me not with these technical quibbles! 
I hark back to a harsher age where the stern eye of the librarian behind the desk dealt with any such shenanigans…
Hostile user experience! Kids today, they don’t know the half of it, mumble, mumble…
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The fact that my library uses RFID tags on the books, but you have to present your library card bar code to be scanned seems awkward, but it could be that there are staunch privacy advocates on staff.
The books belong to the library, so fine, but the library card is a person’s identity and it should be their choice to present it, rather than be tracked every time they walk through the door. (Or past anyone else’s scanners.)
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Love that title!
“As his kilt rises!”
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Most librarians aren’t going to get their panties in a twist about what they term “ephemeral paperbacks.” They are perfectly happy to discard these when they become too marked up.
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ISBN doesn’t work because every copy of a title has the same one. So there is no way of telling WHICH copy of the latest Grisham best seller has been returned.
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I think I’m missing something there…
Person A borrows Mr Grisham’s latest legal thriller “A Pelican Client Briefs The Firm”.
Person B borrows another copy.
Person A returns a copy. One copy is marked off Person A’s borrowing record and replaced on the shelves.
Person B returns a copy. One copy is marked off Person B’s borrowing record and replaced on the shelves.
Does anyone care if Person B returns the copy Person A borrowed?
At the libraries I’m familiar with, when you return books, it doesn’t pay attention to who returns a book, you don’t scan your card, it just checks that the book has come in. Therefore if only one copy comes in, who returned it, Person A or Person B?
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Non-serious answer: Gladiator style combat. Two borrowers enter the arena, only one gets to avoid the non-return fine!
Edit to add: Betting on the outcome can help fund the library.
Serious answer: It’s been a shamefully long time since I borrowed a book from the library and I can’t remember whether I had to scan my card to do it.
A fairly straightforward way of dealing with it without scanning the card would of course simply be to ask the person returning the book to confirm their name if more than one book with the same ISBN is out on loan.
Going back to the original article, a non-book defacing way of dealing with the problem of “Have I read this one or not?” used to be “Ask the librarian”.
Since everywhere seems to be hellbent on getting rid of librarians, that’s obviously not going to work. Maybe we should hire some?
If not, romance readers can get used to strange marks in their books (and thriller writers now have a new way for spies and terrorists to communicate secret messages - it’s a win-win).
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I thought it was Felicia Day! Oh, please let it be Felicia Day…
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Have you considered Eureka! (It turns out to be campy good fun)
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Watched it, loved it, and cried during Maytag commercials featuring Colin Ferguson.
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