An exciting day today as the engineer from Bibliotheca came to set up the Smartstock device and fix a few other minor issues and it was a very successful day. The Smartstock device is a handheld scanner that you can upload with a data file and then use to do stock checks, search for books for weeding and do some shelf searching for unexpected items.
All of the books in our library at Heriot-Watt University were tagged with RFID tags last summer and we have been using the Self Service kiosks for circulation and RFID reader pads on the service desk. The tags are used for security too with gates /antennae at the library entrance.
The Smartstock device can be uploaded with a file of items that you want to search for eg when weeding and then you just scan the shelves and it beeps when it locates the item. It has a display which shows the title and barcode details. It can also be used to scan shelves of books to highlight items that are out of place although this is unexpected items rather than shelf tidying. Also it can be used for stock taking whereby you scan the shelves and then upload the data to the LMS as a record of the stock you have.
It all worked very well during the set up and testing. Quite a few members of staff received training so I'm hoping that we can start using it in the next few days.
The next thing I want to investigate is the iPod hardware / software that Bibliotheca have so you can do basic circulation functions via wifi via an iPod - I've not actually seen it but I know they do do it.
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