- Local Area Network
- Interconnects computers within a limited area
- Initial driving force for networking was generally to share storage and printers
- Small geographic area
- Ethernet and WiFi are the two most common
- Early LAN cabling had been based on various grades of the coaxial cable
- WiFi is now common for ‘cabling’
- Supports easy access for laptops and smartphones
- LANs can maintain connections with other LANs via leased lines, leased services, or the internet via the VPN
Computer network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_network)
- Allows computers to exchange data
- The best known computer network is the internet
- Support access to the www, shared use of application and storage servers, printers, and fax machines and use of email and instant messaging applications
o
Facilitates interpersonal communications
o
Allows sharing of files, data, and other types
of info
- Complex computer networks may be difficult and costly to set up
- Network packets
o
Info in computer networks is carried in packets
o
Formatted unit of data (bits or bytes)
o
The bandwidth of the communication medium can be
better shared among users
o
Consists of two types of data:
§
Control information
·
Provides data the networks needs to deliver the
user data
§
User data
Management of RFID in Libraries (http://www.kcoyle.net/jal-31-5.html)
- RFID = radio frequency identifier
- Like a barcode, but is read with an electro-magnetic field rather than a laser beam
o
Does not have to be visible to be read
o
Carry more complex messages than a barcode
- There are hundreds of different RFID products on the market today
o
What varies is the amount of information the tag
carries, the range in which it can be read, the frequency of its radio waves,
its physical size, and the cost
-
Why RFID in libs?
o
Anyone managing an inventory of physical objects
need to do item-level functions more efficiently and with less human
intervention
o
RFID will probably continue to replace barcodes
- In retail, RFID tags are used only once (placed on an item, sold, and discarded by the customer)
o
This would be more cost effective for libraries
because the same RFID tag would be reused multiple times (because it would be
placed on a book, borrowed, returned, re-shelved, borrowed, returned, etc.)
- Security
o
Tags have ‘special security bit’ that can be
switched from checked-in to checked out
§
Exit gates read each tag as users pass out of
the lib
·
Sounds alarm if the bit is not in ‘checked-out’
state
o
Tags can be covered by Mylar, aluminum foil, or
an aluminum gum wrapper
o
Tags are often found on the inside cover of a
book, barely covered, and can be easily removed
- RFID systems can read multiple tags at once
o
Allows the checkout of multiple books in one
transaction
- RFID could be used to gather statistics on re-shelving and completing inventory
- Could potentially tell a user exactly where an item is located
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