scope:

Foreword

NISO RFID Working Group Charge

The NISO RFID Working Group was formed to focus on the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies in U.S. libraries. As our work has moved forward, however, there have been new developments with regard to RFID implementation in the larger book industry as well as in other countries, including the U.K., Denmark, the Netherlands, and Australia. Indeed, RFID technologies are still evolving and thus represent a moving target. As a result, it is important to understand the needs of the several elements of the publishing value chain, especially as concerns standards and interoperability.

Among the goals of our work are the following:

1) To review existing RFID standards, assess the applicability of this technology in U.S. libraries and across the book publishing supply chain, and promote the use of RFID where appropriate. 2) To examine and assess privacy concerns associated with the adoption of RFID technologies in libraries.

3) To investigate the way RFID may be used for the circulation or sale of books and other media in the United States and make recommendations.

4) To focus on security and data models for RFID tags, along with issues of interoperability and privacy.

5) To create a set of recommendations for libraries with regard to a tag data model and other issues.

To achieve these goals, we recognized the need to involve a broad spectrum of book industry participants, including:

• librarians (academic & public),

• RFID solution providers (software and integration),

• RFID hardware manufacturers,

• book jobbers and distributors,

• publishers, and

• book manufacturers and printers.

The charge of this working group was limited to item identification-that is, the implementation of RFID for books and other materials-and specifically excludes its use with regard to the identification of people. Thus, this report does not touch on the subject of smart cards and other uses of RFID for the identification of individual persons. The NISO RFID Working Group specifically recommends that data relating to individual persons never be recorded on item tags.