Costs of Implementation

The costs of an RFID implementation are not low. The tags still cost around one dollar each depending on the capabilities required. Readers are key tools and cost over a thousand dollars each. The redesign of circulation areas adds significant costs to the system. The labeling and encoding of each item in the library’s collection is also a time- consuming and costly one-time step.

The Library Journal [4] asked several library RFID system providers for the cost of implementing a system in a mid-sized library. The sample library would have 200,000 items requiring tags, one self-checkout, one self return, and one entrance gate. The average price was $175,000 in US dollars, approximately $220,000 Canadian.

The Vancouver Public Library costed an RFID implementation in November 2003 and the price was approximately $3,000,000 for it’s Central Reference Branch alone. [5]