Adding RFID Compatibility?

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Hi Eric,

Thanks again for all your help back in December! 6 months in and our 
self-checkout is still going strong. Our patrons love it, and we've had fun 
customizing the software with voice prompts and the like.

I maintain a fork of this project that fixes some of the compatibility issues 
introduced by our ILS, and I've heard some interest from other libraries who 
use RFID that want to build a self-checkout station. Are you still using RFID 
at your home library? If so, could you tell me what it would take to integrate 
that functionality into this software?

Original issue reported on code.google.com by kkaffenb...@greensburglibrary.org on 11 Jun 2013 at 4:38

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Our RFID selfchecks just went live. We use Envisionware for our RFID which 
includes a piece of software called RFID Link. RFID Link seems essentially to 
be a server that accepts api calls. Our RFID selfchecks run on WAMP and use 
ajax calls to RFID Link to determine when/if tags are present. It then reads 
the tags and feeds them to the checkout process. What kind of RFID product are 
you using?

Original comment by ericmelton1@gmail.com on 11 Jun 2013 at 5:00

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I've linked some interested parties to this conversation, so hopefully they 
will be able to give some more detailed information on their individual setups. 
I was mostly curious if RFID compatibility can be implemented in a "one-size 
fits all" kind of way, and I am thinking that is not the case? Unless there is 
a cross-platform standard for RFID communication.

Original comment by kkaffenb...@greensburglibrary.org on 11 Jun 2013 at 5:44

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The setup will likely depend on your RFID software.

Original comment by ericmelton1@gmail.com on 11 Jun 2013 at 5:47

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One library in question is using 3M RFID tags. Don't suppose you're familiar 
with their RFID software package? :)

Original comment by kkaffenb...@greensburglibrary.org on 11 Jun 2013 at 6:35

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No. Sorry. If they have an api or some kind of go-between software for 
self-checks that passes RFID info into an application (like Firefox) it's 
probably possible to get it to work.

Original comment by ericmelton1@gmail.com on 11 Jun 2013 at 6:52

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Excellent. We will cross that bridge when we get there, then. Thanks again for 
all your help!

Original comment by kaffe...@gmail.com on 11 Jun 2013 at 6:54

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Hi - and sorry for the delay. 

We are currently running six stations allowing loan and return and have 
integrated with a RFID reader manufactured by tagsys. The RFID "glue" part is a 
homegrown tool that echoes the itemIds as keystrokes as they show up in the 
reader's field. So the input is just like a barcode pistol. Up to ten stacked 
items can be done as each keyboard echo is triggered by a http request to the 
RFID reader. (Un)locking the item is done using this trigger call. 

Original comment by familie....@gmail.com on 24 Jan 2014 at 7:27

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To the above poster, can you be more specific on what model the tagsys product 
is and on the RFID "glue". Is glue an open source project or something 
exclusive to your library. Is it something you're willing to share?

Original comment by sabtica...@gmail.com on 8 Oct 2014 at 8:13

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Thanks for your interest, sabtica... There is no problem becoming more specific 
in this point. The clue of this glue is its flexibility, because it just acts 
like a USB bacode scanner: it posts the item code as keyboard events followed 
by a RETURN. Its a .jar that runs literally everywhere. We have it on OSX, Win, 
and Ubuntu-powered Wyse ThinClients. All Tagsys readers known here are 
accepted: USB, Ethernet and Wifi Handheld are tested. The USB readers are 
recognized by current Linux Kernels. All items in the field show up in a list 
with their itemcode and locking state, and disappear from the list when moved 
out of the field(!) If more than one item is in the field, the itemcodes are 
sent one after the other. While this is fine in interactive mode, it would 
break communication within the os-selfcheck. So there is a triggered mode which 
holds back the keyboard output until triggered by an http(ajax) request. This 
allows for a (very fast: > 2/s !) booking of stacked items. Including 
(un)locking items on demand.
The code is open source, but is not publishable yet. The library handling the 
danish data model on the tags can be found on google code: 
https://code.google.com/p/libdanrfid/
hope ist helps - best regards

Original comment by familie....@gmail.com on 10 Oct 2014 at 6:38

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I downloaded a clone of the git, I did not see any .jar files only .java files. 
Maybe im missing something? Sorry if this is too trivial. I am not a programer 
just a tinkerer but I really want to make this work for my library. Feel free 
to email me directly at chrismtz@gmail.com. 

Original comment by chris...@gmail.com on 10 Oct 2014 at 7:57

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Really interested in the triggered mode on this homegrown tool that 
familie....@gmail.com refers to - would love to know when the code becomes 
available

Original comment by tommy...@gmail.com on 21 Oct 2014 at 7:44