TRAWLING through library shelves to find a misplaced book may soon be a thing of the past, as the National Library launches a trial of a high-tech book-tracking system.
Using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, the Smart Shelf system can detect a book's availability and its exact location on the library shelves.
Each book will be tagged with a RFID chip and the shelves will have RFID antennas to identify the books placed on each shelf.
The system is a collaboration between National Library Board (NLB), A*Star's Exploit Technologies and the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R).
It will be on trial at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library on the seventh floor of the National Library building until September.
The Smart Shelf system will be able to track 46,000 books on 275 shelves in the Social Sciences and Applied Sciences Reference sections.
Besides the obvious benefit of locating a misplaced book, NLB staff can also use the Smart Shelf system to track readership patterns and conduct real-time inventory checks for quick and accurate shelving.
NLB CEO Dr N Varaprasad said: 'The ease of locating books will save time for library users and staff to focus on more productive tasks at hand.
'Also, by knowing the popularity of books browsed, it will provide an indication of the resources in demand, especially for the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library as a reference library where loan statistics are not applicable.
'Tests are still being done with I2R to fine-tune the system and to bring down the cost.'
