What is RFID and Why Do We Care?

I'm so happy that so many of you have signed up to ride to Chicago and view the products of three different RFID vendors. Many of you have seen RFID in action at other libraries, but many of you haven't, so I thought I'd give you a quick guide to what it is and why we care.
First, let's start with why we care.
KPL staff joined with the community to develop a very ambitious strategic plan the year before I arrived. My job now is to lead the projects to put that plan into place. That includes figuring out how to squeeze the resources we have to provide the results we promised the community. It's no secret that KPL could use a lot more financial support. Funding barely increases from year to year and in some past years, it's even decreased. So how do we accomplish an ambitious plan while still providing core services? By working smarter.
Working smarter means getting more efficient. It also means investing in technology to do what we're currently doing by hand and reinvesting our staff resources toward the new work defined in the plan. That work includes

• Children's services and programming, like Computer Coding Camps for Kids and other STEM activities.
• Adult public programs like Big Read and community discussion events.
• Grant writing and fundraising to diversify our income and help us become more resilient to the ebb and flow of city funding.
• Digital literacy (computer classes and technology instruction) to help people get jobs, earn their GED, improve their school performance, and navigate the modern world.
• Outreach to schools, senior living communities, the disabled, and English language learners.
• Staff training so we are all ready to deliver the right answer every time.
• Partnership development with other organizations in our community.
• Merchandising our collections to make them more appealing, more visible, and get them into the hands of our customers.

Sound impossible? Not if we work together.
Here's a surprising fact: 50% of our staff work in some kind of task related to circulation. That 50% costs $1.7 million annually. Most of that work can be automated using RFID technology. Can you imagine what we could do with even $1 million dollars of the money we've invested in doing circulation tasks by hand?
Now here's another surprising fact: Libraries who convert to RFID NEVER do so to cut staff. Just like the KPL plan, they do so to ADD services that the public wants, like more children's staff, people on the floor to help with computers and digital devices, to teach, to recommend a book in the stacks, to arrange the shelves to entice people to pick up a book, to arrange an interesting program. And they keep the best parts about circulation- the relationships. Yes, those of you who check things out for people every day build wonderful relationships with our community, relationships no machine could ever build. That's why we want you interacting with the public more. By automating the check in and sorting process, you will have more time to spend in activities that meet the public. We're not replacing you. We're freeing you to do what you do best! And with more collection activity, we'll need even more staff hours to shelve returned materials.

So what is this RFID thing, anyway? Here's a short YouTube video to explain the science. Each item in our collection will need a new RFID tag, programmed to identify the item. This is in addition to the barcode. The tags allow patrons to check things out themselves at "self check" machines, up to five things at once. They also allow for returned items to be checked in immediately. So parents who check out 50 picture books at a time will instantly be able to check out 50 more after returning the books through the new book drops- their items will be checked in by the time they approach the self checks with their new selections and any fines will be calculated in advance. On the other side of the book drop we will install AMH (automated materials handling) equipment that sorts the items into bins according to our specifications. For instance, we can set the equipment to sort all children's books into one bin and all adult books into another. Sorting systems can be as small as three bins or as large as several hundred. It depends on how many item types and how many locations you have. So Brooklyn Public Library may sort 100 ways. We will start with 5 bins at Northside and 7 bins at SW. Uptown and Simmons will continue to handle returned items as they do now.
RFID tagging will begin early summer 2015. Self check machines will be installed mid-year, as well. From now till then, we have a lot of work to do. First, we have to make sure that everything we tag is worth keeping. That's why we're removing so many old and unused items from the collection. Tagging is labor-intensive and expensive. I don't expect to gain a lot of staff hours for other activities by installing self-checks. For one thing, tagging our collection will take a lot of staff hours and there will be catch-up work to make sure we haven't missed anything. Also, much of our community will still want help checking out for the first few months, so we will need to keep our desks staffed to provide the extra support. Bottom line is, we'll be plenty busy in 2015 with the whole transition.

AMH is scheduled for 2016. That's when we will start to see the opportunity to reassign staff.
I hope the list of new activities captures your imagination. I hope you see a place for your talents and interests in this list. You are all valued and are a vital part of our success.
Enjoy your time in Chicago!