The Survey of Use of RFID in Libraries

This study looks closely how academic, public and special libraries use RFID technology. The report gives detailed data from nearly 100 libraries worldwide on spending on RFID sensors, gates, tags and other technology, equipment and supplies, relating amounts spent, vendors used and institutional experiences and assessments. The report looks at security and safety issues, privacy issues, impact on library staff, impact on productivity, impact on patron theft, trends in use for non-book materials and many other issues of concern to librarians using or thinking of using RFID technology

Just a few of the study's many findings are that:

• In libraries that have already employed RFID, a mean of 85.27% of all physical collection items are tracked with this technology
• Libraries with budgets between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000 spent a mean of $96,517 (US) on RFID readers, wands, conveyors, gate sensors and other technology.
• 26.67% of libraries using the technology said that it has led to less patron theft.
• The possibility of interference or erroneous check-out caused by RFID tag proximity with multiple patrons is not a consideration for 33.8% of libraries and is a modest issue for about 49.3%.