One of the major goals of the IMLS grant is the creation of resources that allow us to collaborate on new development. 

The purpose of RSCEL is as much about creating a thriving development community as it is creating a collaborative user community.  The one won't really go anywhere without the other.

So we have an RFP hitting the street in the next couple of weeks, on behalf of the grant, to develop a shared enhancement database where we can

• Enter new software and enhancement ideas
• Review them as a community
• Endorse or modify
• Prioritize
• Offer to contribute toward cost-sharing
• Convert the ideas into a specification format that a developer can easily work from
• Publish requests to the development community
• Track request progress

Anyone familiar with my previous writing and thinking about RFID may find this post ironic, if not contradictory.  I'm hoping rather that it simply reflects keeping an open mind about the evolution of technology, and the value and energy that can be created by public libraries working together to create great new services through newfound control of their information systems.

In summary, this post is an open-letter of support for a grant proposal led by the Grand Rapids Public Library.  The proposal is for the development of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) sub-system and standard for interoperability with the Evergreen system.

The potential benefits for public libraries include better patron service and staff efficiency for material handling, self-checkout, and possibly a few security options to try to discourage disappearance of popular media materials.

Cutting right to the chase, the possible benefit that I'm really jazzed about for KCLS is the ability of this concept to make it so that our backroom staff don't have to open every single DVD or CD that returns to the library to verify that:

a) the disk is actually in the container and

b) that multiple disk sets actually have all the disks included