Virtual Academic Library Project– contract award for RFID implementation

The Virtual Academic Library Project has awarded the first major contract under the terms of the South West Wales Higher Education Partnership, Reconfiguration & Collaboration Project: Functional Administrative Collaboration. Following a highly competitive EU tender process, Nottinghamshire based 2CQR were awarded the contract for the supply and implementation of an RFID (radio frequency identification) technology system to provide “state-of-the-art” self-service, security and stock control systems to the seven libraries across the three HEIs, comprising a collection of nearly 1.2 million items.

The adoption of this self service technology will make the institutions’ libraries significantly more user-friendly, efficient, and, in the long-term, will assist in bringing about significant savings to their budgets.
2CQR are a well established company with many years’ experience in delivering library systems to academic and public libraries.  With a client list covering the length & breadth of the UK, 2CQR are one of the growing number of companies who specialise in providing and developing high technology solutions for library automation.

In the press release, Chris Robb from 2CQR was quoted as saying:  “We’re delighted to be involved in such a large, forward-thinking project.  As a leader in the library systems field, we’re always looking to work with people with visionary ideas.  Our ability to centralise the operation of all three libraries’ RFID needs is crucial to save them money and improve services at the same time.”

Initial RFID implementations at Swansea Metropolitan University Dynevor Library and Swansea University South Wales Miner’s Library went live in September 2008. Swansea Metropolitan’s Owen library will go live at Easter 2009, with the remaining 4 library sites are completed over the 2009 summer vacation, in time for the start of the 2009/10 Academic year.  Collaborative development with 2CQR will also see the rollout of UK RFID self service firsts such as integrated Chip & Pin / Smartcard self payment, and ‘intelligent’ item tracking on security gates in all sites as part of the implementation plan. The implementation of RFID self service technology will facilitate additional planned improvements within the project, including reciprocal borrowing; physical and electronic document delivery between the institutions.  Additional project strands to deliver shared access to library catalogues and e-resources, shared storage of low-use research material and a co-ordinated approach to staff development are also underway and will be rolled out in parallel to this.

A marketing and information plan for the project has also been initialised, with the aim of not just keeping internal stakeholders and service users appraised of development, but also of utilising the project to significantly raise the profile of the 3 library services (and by extension the 3 institutions) as being visionary, proactive, and leaders in the field of service development.