The leading supplier of books to Dutch libraries, NBD|Biblion, applies RFID labels to all new books to enable automatic tracking of books within libraries.
In March 2004, NBD|Biblion, which delivers 2.7 million books to Dutch libraries annually, decided to integrate 13.56 MHz radio frequency identification (RFID) labels in all the books they supply. This item-level RFID labeling project is now under way and is entirely supported by NBD|Biblion, with no extra cost for the libraries.
UPM Rafsec is providing half of all the labels required by NBD|Biblion with more than one million RFID labels delivered to date.
NBD|Biblion aims to stimulate the use of RFID tagging in libraries, where the technology enables fully automated check in/out and inventory management. The chip within the RFID tag stores a unique ID code, which can be used to identify and track the book. The tag can be read at a distance with a fixed or portable RFID reader without the need for line of sight.
To tag new books, NBD|Biblion has installed two automated applicators that print, encode and apply RFID labels to the new books. The company is also offering, as an added service to its customers, the possibility of tagging existing collections of unlabeled books in order to migrate their entire collections to RFID-based library management solutions.
UPM Rafsec specializes in the production and development of card, ticket and label transponders based on RFID technology. Founded in 1997, UPM Rafsec headquarters and R&D are located in Tampere, Finland, and the production plant in Jyväskylä. In addition, UPM Rafsec has sales offices in U.S., Netherlands, Japan and Singapore.
For more information, visit www.rafsec.com.
