In the beginning …

When the library service of Essex County Council in the UK first became interested in RFID in the mid 1990s, it was for a very pragmatic reason. One of its largest libraries – Colchester, in the north-east of the county – had a radio frequency (RF) by-pass security system that had been installed in 1982. Such systems commonly work on one of two frequencies – 10.5 MHz and 8.2MHz – and at the time of the installation at Colchester, there were no regulations about which one should be used by libraries. Consequently, the 8.2 MHz frequency was chosen, as this was different from the 10.5 MHz used by the University of Essex (located nearby) so as to avoid causing problems for users of the two libraries. As the ‘by-pass’ element of the name suggests, the tags used in these systems remain permanently live and so taking a tagged item into an environment where the same frequency is used causes it to trigger the system's alarm.

A few years later, however, a protocol was devised to regularize the use of these two frequencies, so as to enable differentiation between use in the library environment and in retail. Unfortunately for Essex, the frequency allocated for retail use was the 8.2 MHz used in Colchester library, and as a result many of its customers found themselves setting off security system alarms in shops, simply by having a library book with them.

This was clearly a major public relations problem, with library users understandably concerned (at the very least) about being subjected to embarrassing and unnecessary searches and interrogations by retail security staff who were simply doing their job. The fact that this situation was nobody's fault – least of all that of the library service – was of little comfort or use in responding to the many resulting complaints.