An alliance of leading UK library suppliers, including 3M, Intellident, 2CQR and Bibliotheca RFID Library Systems AG, recently joined forces to carry out comprehensive interoperability testing on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag formats.

The process consisted of testing the RFID tags of each company against an agreed set of test cases to ensure correct performance.

This means that customers can now buy products such as detection gates and self-service terminals from any of these suppliers with the confidence that they will be interoperable.  This will allow a single library to successfully deploy products from a range of different suppliers thereby eliminating the need and the cost of refitting.

Andrew Fish, European Senior Development Engineer for 3M’s Track & Trace Division, comments: “The RFID Alliance has helped ensure interoperability between major suppliers in the UK industry.  We are pleased that now any of the RFID tags that have been put through the testing process, encoded with ISO 28560 UK Profile, will deliver the desired interoperability.  We believe this achievement is a clear benefit to the customer and will maximise customer choice”. 

Andrew continues: “We urge other suppliers in this area to adopt the same approach to allow a fully cohesive and complementary RFID product range – we have taken a huge step towards universally adopted technology in UK libraries.  After all, one RFID format will help ease customers minds that what they are purchasing will be fully compatible with a variety of RFID equipment.”

The stated RFID test cases and results have been documented and are available on request by any other supplier wishing to ensure interoperability.