[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] self check out systems

[Dan Scott]

On Mon, 2010-01-04 at 14:31 -0700, Mauerhoff, Petra wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I am interested in finding out if anyone is using self check out
> systems with Evergreen, and if so, which system you are using and what
> your experience has been (pros, cons, etc).
> 
>  
> 
> Any information you can provide is appreciated.

Hi Petra:

Timely question! We just bought a 3M self-check (V series V3) in late
December and have it running in production with Evergreen today. So I
can't provide you with too much data on long-term likes/dislikes about
the unit yet.

We're using it in a pretty limited mode for the time being: 
  * barcode scanning only (the unit also supports RFID)
  * printed receipts only (although the unit supports emailed receipts)
  * check-out only (the unit also supports renewals and check ins)

As a bilingual institution, we like that it supports multiple languages.

The major con with Evergreen was that the SIP implementation didn't
support UTF-8 data the way that the 3M self-check expected it to. I
posted patches that fixed the problem for us earlier today at
http://markmail.org/message/px3oadhokmybpuoy - so that shouldn't be a
con anymore, at least with this unit.

The other con of the unit is that there is a very noticeable lag between
the time an item's barcode is scanned and the self check provides any
feedback to the user; it might be that the unit waits to get some
confirmation from the Evergreen SIP server before popping up the
"Getting item information" dialogue. Even if that's the case, I would be
much happier if it immediately let the user know the scan was successful
and that something was happening and am going to submit that as a
request for enhancement to 3M.

Similarly, there's a delay between the time the item check out
information is displayed and the item is desensitized; if the user pulls
the item away too quickly, the check out transaction is scrapped and the
user has to start from scratch again.