[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Self check units with open ils?

[Brandon W. Uhlman]

Hi, John.

The Sitka consortium is quite un-restrictive; many sites will already  
have self-check technology from a variety of vendors before joining  
our consortium and we'll have to support them all.

I actually replied to David earlier this morning, and forgot to reply  
to the list (mea culpa!). I'm including my reply to David below, to  
flush out our setup, and to include some other comments that might be  
useful to have in the archives if this topic comes up again.

~~~~~~~

Here in the growing British Columbia consortium, two of our  
(currently) seven member libraries are using self-check. One is using  
a system from Sentry Technology, with a magnetic desensitizer; one is  
using a 3M system with RFID. Both interact with Evergreen via SIP2,  
provided for Evergreen by the open source OpenNCIP server.

The machine from Sentry, in particular, has some more advanced  
features, like allowing renewals. OpenNCIP and Evergreen's SIP2  
connector needed a little work to support this feature, but now it  
seems to be working fine.

Any self-check terminal that supports SIP2 should work fine with  
Evergreen. If its interpretation of the SIP2 standard is a little...  
esoteric, we should be able to patch the Evergreen side to solve the  
problem if we have to.

So-called 'poor man's self check' -- that is, a PC with a barcode  
scanner that doesn't do desensitizing, etc. -- is planned for  
Evergreen 1.2.3, but I'm not sure when that's due out. There was a  
discussion on this list earlier this month about exactly this topic.

If you weren't a member earlier this month, you can check the list archives
(http://list.georgialibraries.org/pipermail/open-ils-dev/) for July  
2008; the subject heading was 'Staff client self-check/express-check  
mode'

~~~~~

~B

Quoting John Fink <john.fink at gmail.com>:

> Hello David,
>
> I think BC Pines uses Sentry machines; we're planning on using 3M machines
> ourselves here at McMaster, and I think PINES uses 3M.  As I understand it,
> any machine that speaks SIP2 -- and most of them should -- should work out
> okay.
>
> jf
>
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 11:25 AM, David Coulter <Dcoulter at grapevinetexas.gov
>> wrote:
>
>>  What kind of self check units are open source libraries using?  Have some
>> developed their own systems?  Do you use commercial providers?  If you have
>> used commercial providers how have they worked out?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Dave
>>
>> David Coulter
>> Systems Administrator
>> Grapevine Public Library
>> Grapevine, Texas 76051
>> 817-410-3415
>>
>
>
>
> --
> http://libgrunt.blogspot.com -- library culture and technology.
>



======================================
Brandon W. Uhlman, Systems Consultant
Public Library Services Branch
Ministry of Education
Government of British Columbia
605 Robson Street, 5th Floor
Vancouver, BC  V6B 5J3

Phone: (604) 660-2972
E-mail: brandon.uhlman at gov.bc.ca
         brandon.uhlman at bclibrary.ca