RFID Technology for Managing Next-Generation Smart Library Systems

RFID Technology has been used and developed for more than 50 years; first by Harry Stockman in 1948 and its application have been commonly used around us. In today's information society the librarians have a great responsibility to organize and manage the knowledge center due to exponential increase the volume of information which leads to the information explosion. Libraries have been seeking technological support to improve their organizational setup for providing effective customer services and also manage various services. Now libraries and information centers have started using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems to replace their electro-magnetic and barcode systems in the late 1990s. The purpose of an RFID system is to enable data to be transmitted by a mobile device, called a tag, which is read by an RFID reader and processed according to the needs of a particular application. The use of RFID in tracking and access applications first appeared during the 1980s. RFID quickly gained attention because of its ability to track moving objects. As the technology is developed, more pervasive and possibly invasive uses for RFID tags are in the works.