KohaNA 2015 - Koha with RFID and SIP2

by Kyle Hall on Aug 5, 2015

Chris Rohde and Rendi Hodge from the Roseville Public Library in Roseville, California presented their work and experience using Koha with RFID reading technology using the SIP2 protocol.

Chris and Rendi presented remotely from the Roseville Library using GoToMeeting.

One of the primary benefits of using Koha with SIP is there is no additional cost based on the number of SIP devices you use. This is a very common additional charge with proprietary ILSs.

Chris explained that 3M created the 3M Standard Interchange Protocol in 1993 for device to ILS communication. The copyright was donated to NISO, the National Information Standards Organization in 2012.

Next he overviewed RFID technology. The RFID chips they use are passive, and have a strongadhesive for attaching them to items. For some reason, only small children are able to remove the chips from items once attached.

Though RFID tags can store numerous data, Roseville only stores the item barcode and a security flag in their chips. The security flag lets the door scanners know whether to alarm or not when an item passes through.

Next Chris went over AMH, Automated Materials Handling. This is technology thatleverages RFID and SIP technology. This includes automated book-drops. He believe that AMH beings the librarians closer to the patrons, as they do not need to be dealing with issue in the back, and can instead be at the front desk or out on the floor.

Roseville uses automated self check machines, book sorters, and security gates using RFID and SIP technology. They have 11 self check machines of various types, including desk based, full kiosks, and even built-ins that look similar to an ATM machine where they are installed flush to the wall.

Roseville’s Koha setup includes a split server, where all the SIP server instances live on a separate server from the rest of the Koha installation. They also create a separate sip login for each device they use to make troubleshooting much easier.

Chris and Rendi also caution that you must make sure your RFID vendor fully supports the SIP messages you need, as many are not fully compliant.