Thank you

We are not a library, we are a  broadcasting sound archive.  Most, and I
mean most, of our items may get pulled out once in 10 or 12 years, or never
(depending on anniversaries, etc).  My gut instinct is to use barcodes,
because we can do that for virtually no investment and maintain our
accession number, which has been the whole purpose of this exercise,
re-numbering artifacts that have no meaningful number when we go to preserve
it.  Plus, the only people handling these are archivists, and not
patrons/normal humans (hehe), so I would trust the barcode would remain
intact for a long time.

I looked at the Wiki page and found it kinda useful.

Will keep you posted as to what we do.

Cheers
Marie

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 9:55 PM, Corey Bailey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Marie
> I'm not sure how much research you have put into RFID yet but Wikipedia
> will at least give you some idea:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification
>
> For archival storage you would have to consider passive RFID because the
> active versions require a battery. To my knowledge, there is no evidence of
> RFID chips having any affect on nearby magnetic media. The chips are being
> implanted in credit cards and passports for example which have adjacent
> magnetic stripes. The RF power generated by even the high output active RFID
> chips is so low that it's hard to imagine how they would affect the
> coercivity of pre recorded audio tape. Video tape (I would think) with it's
> very high coercivity would be out of the question.
>
> You would be using passive RFID that would only be read (energized or
> resonated if you will) once or twice a year for inventory purposes. I can't
> imagine their being a problem for long term storage.
>
> I suspect that your biggest consideration at this point would be cost. The
> technology may not be cost effective unless you have tens of thousands of
> units to inventory.
>
> My greatest concern would be backwards compatibility. If you implement RFID
> 4.0 today will it be readable in 25 years by RFID 10.2.1? For the present, I
> wouldn't abandon your barcode system and look into the possible addition of
> RFID.
>
> I'm still a fan of the old fashioned printed label on the binder or
> somewhere else in addition to whatever computerized system that's in place.
> It only takes one data entry error and then........
>
> Keep us posted!
>
> Cheers!
>
> Corey Bailey
>
>
>
> At 07:37 PM 12/13/2009, you wrote:
>
>> Hi all
>>
>> We need to renumber some of our older accessions and have been considering
>> barcodes with the accession number included.  It was suggested to me today
>> that we could be using RFID (radio frequency ID).  As I know virtually
>> nothing about them I have an uneasy feeling about applying this technology
>> to magnetic tape boxes and reels.
>>
>> Does any audio visual archive use this technology on its tape boxes and/or
>> reels?
>> Is there any danger to the magnetic tape itself, considering both the box
>> and reel would need the same identifier?
>> Can the actual accession number be put on these so as to be seen visibly?
>>
>> Any thoughts would be much appreciated.  Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Marie
>>
>