Cool New Way to Get a Book's Number

There's a new scanning sheriff coming to town, or at least there is for Dutch bookseller Selexyz and it sounds pretty darn smart, if you ask me. I read an article in this month's Business 2.0 about RFID scanning (radio frequency ID tags), which they put inside the book, then put the books inside the box, and scan the whole box, rather than having to hand scan each book.

Saves mega time, and even better, will allow people in bookstores to pinpoint a book's exact location. For the stores that are using this techology, 50% of all customers buy a book. Not a bad number! I bet most people who go in a store, type in a book into the computer and then search fruitlessly for either the book or a bookseller, walk out with nothing. I love bookstores, and booksellers, but sometimes they can be a frustrating place when you want a certain novel or advice book and there's no one around to help you or the inventory says the store has five on hand and they all seem to have been mis-shelved. This RFID system seems like a great way to solve all those problems.

The Business 2.0 article isn't online (which is too bad because they had a really great photo essay to go with it) but here's another one on this same company.

Very cool stuff, IMO, and I can't wait for it to make it to my local booksellers. Better yet, I'd love one so I could go to Wal-Mart, find all my own books, and quickly face them all out so that they can be seen and bought even faster ;-) [And a big shout out to my "Face out Shirley Jump Posse out there who do this on a regular basis. You guys ROCK!]

Shirley