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A brief history and development of barcode technology is given with an introduction to the basic features of barcode systems, reading equipment and barcode printers. Popular barcodes are compared and evaluation criteria established. Similar evaluation techniques for readers and printers are included with special reference to library applications. Barcode technology is considered the most appropriate when compared with competing systems. Future trends are briefly examined.

The purpose of this study is to design, program and implement an intelligent robot for shelf-reading. an essential task in library maintenance is shelf-reading, which refers to the process of checking the disciplines of books based on their call numbers to ensure that they are correctly shelved. Shelf-reading is a routine yet challenging task for librarians, as it involves controlling call numbers on the scale of thousands of books promptly.

Leveraging the strength of autonomous robots in handling repetitive tasks, this paper introduces a novel vision-based shelf-reader robot, called \emph{Pars} and demonstrate its effectiveness in accomplishing shelf-reading tasks. Also, this paper proposes a novel supervised approach to power the vision system of \emph{Pars}, allowing it to handle motion blur on images captured while it moves. An approach based on Faster R-CNN is also incorporated into the vision system, allowing the robot to efficiently detect the region of interest for retrieving a book’s information.

This paper evaluated the robot’s performance in a library with $120,000 books and discovered problems such as missing and misplaced books. Besides, this paper introduces a new challenging data set of blurred barcodes free publicly available for similar research studies.

The robot is equipped with six parallel cameras, which enable it to check books and decide moving paths. Through its vision-based system, it is also capable of routing and tracking paths between bookcases in a library and it can also turn around bends. Moreover, \emph{Pars} addresses the blurred barcodes, which may appear because of its motion.

Book sorting system is one of specific application in smart library scenarios, and it now has been widely used in most libraries based on RFID (radio-frequency identification devices) technology. Book identification processing is one of the core parts of a book sorting system, and the efficiency and accuracy of book identification are extremely critical to all libraries. In this paper, the authors propose a new image recognition method to identify books in libraries based on barcode decoding together with deep learning optical character recognition (OCR) and describe its application in library book identification processing.

The identification process relies on recognition of the images or videos of the book cover moving on a conveyor belt. Barcode is printed on or attached to the surface of each book. Deep learning OCR program is applied to improve the accuracy of recognition, especially when the barcode is blurred or faded. The approach the authors proposed is robust with high accuracy and good performance, even though input pictures are not in high resolution and the book covers are not always vertical.

The proposed method with deep learning OCR achieves best accuracy in different vertical, skewed and blurred image conditions.

Methods that the authors proposed need to cooperate and practice in different book sorting machine.

The authors collected more than 500 books from a library. These photos display the cover of more than 100 randomly picked books with backgrounds in different colors, each of which has about five different pictures captured from variety angles. The proposed method combines traditional barcode identification algorithm with the authors’ modification to locate and deskew the image. And deep learning OCR is involved to enhance the accuracy when the barcode is blurred or partly faded. Book sorting system design based on this method will also be introduced.

Experiment demonstrates that the accuracy of the proposed method is high in real-time test and achieves good accuracy even when the barcode is blurred. Deep learning is very effective in analyzing image content, and a corresponding series of methods have been formed in video content understanding, which can be a greater advantage and play a role in the application scene of intelligent library.

This chapter explores the concept of market infrastructure, which is tentatively defined as a materially heterogeneous arrangement that silently supports and structures the consummation of market exchanges. Specifically, the authors investigate the enactment of market infrastructure in the US grocery retail sector by exploring how barcodes and related devices contributed to modify its market infrastructure during the period 1967–2010. Combining this empirical case with insights from previous research, the authors propose that market infrastructures are relational, available for use, modular, actively maintained, interdependent, commercial, emergent and political. The authors argue that this conception of market infrastructure provides a powerful tool for unveiling the complex agencements and engineering efforts that underpin seemingly superficial, individual and isolated market exchanges.

Describes how declining standards in printing quality are resulting in failure of barcodes to scan, and shows how the problem can be averted if printers use film masters to print and verifiers to check barcodes when printed. Recommends standardization of barcode technology throughout Europe and training of staff to ensure adherence to such standards.

The articles on computerised facilities management that have previously appeared in Facilities have tended to concentrate on strategic facilities management tasks. These tasks are of great importance both to the facilities management department and to the functioning of the organisation as a whole and they also have the advantage that they require small quantities of data. PCs using spreadsheets or database programs are usually more than able to cope with the tasks.

Barcode as a powerful automatic identification technique in everything from retailing to heavy manufacturing is discussed, outlining the technology available to the industrial sector – industrial scanners, readers, printers and systems. A typical factory floor data collection and production information system (ShopScan) is described as an illustrative example, though wide‐ranging applications are possible.

Covers the development of the PDF417 barcode symbology, describing the evolution of the linear bar code and why PDF – the portable data file – was developed. Examples are given of PDF417 being used. Techniques including error correction, algorithms and scanning are described.

The purpose of this paper is to identify a light and scalable augmented reality (AR) solution to enhance library collections.

The author first did research to identify the major obstacle in creating a scalable AR solution. Next, she explored possible workaround methods and successfully developed two prototypes that make the current Web-based AR work with ISBN barcode.

Libraries have adopted AR technology in recent years mainly by developing mobile applications for specific education or navigation programs. Yet a straight-forward AR solution to enhance a library's collection has not been seen. One of the obstacles lies in finding a scalable and painless solution to associate special AR objects with physical books. At title level, books already have their unique identifier – the ISBN number. Unfortunately, marker-based AR technology only accept two-dimensional (2-D) objects, not the one-dimensional (1-D) EAN barcode (or ISBN barcode) used by books, as markers for technical reasons. In this paper, the author shares her development of two prototypes to make the Web-based AR work with the ISBN barcode. With the prototypes, a user can simply scan the ISBN barcode on a book to retrieve related AR content.

This paper mainly researched and experimented with Web-based AR technologies in the attempt to identify a solution that is as platform-neutral as possible, and as user-friendly as possible.

The light and platform-neutral AR prototypes discussed in this paper have the benefits of minimum cost on both the development side and the experience side. A library does not need to put any additional marker on any book to implement the AR. A user does not need to install any additional applications in his/her smartphone to experience the AR. The prototypes show a promising future where physical collections inside libraries can become more interactive and attractive by blurring the line of reality and virtuality.

The paper can help initiate the discussion on applying Web-based AR technologies to library collections.

Outlines research work based on the application of coding theory and information theory to barcode systems design, with the aim of developing a replacement for traditional linear barcodes. The coding device needs to be cheap to print and easy to read but also have the ability to store and retrieve a complete transaction file. The result of this work was PDF417, a symbol which can contain over a kilobyte of binary data or almost 2,000 alphanumeric characters. Describes the key features of PDF417 and gives examples of applications in the automotive industry, supply chain communications and military ID card systems. Concludes that PDF417 Portable Data File technology opens the door to a wide range of important new application opportunities, sometimes complimenting and other times replacing the traditional linear barcodes.