How do those walk-through scanners in libraries know if you’re taking a book without borrowing it, especially if those books don’t have metal inserts or anything like that?

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How does the library borrowing system work? and how come even if there is no obvious metal insert in the book those gates still know when and when not to beep if the book has or hasn’t been borrowed?

In: Technology

20 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

We call it tattle tape. A tiny strip that goes in between pages and so unobtrusive you would never know it is there. Of course, what sets off ours might not work at another library depending on the frequency.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The piece of metal at one time was hidden behind the punch-card-pocket inside the cover. So that there was only one commissioning step, install the self-adhesive pouch and done.

I have not been to a library in a long time I’m sure there are various systems now.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I work at a city library. They are RFID tags that get deactivated at checkout. Much like retail stores. Just an adhesive programmable RFID tag.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I used to work at a library for many years. One of my jobs was to put this tape along the inner binding that was magnetized. When a patron brought the books to the counter to check out we would rub them on this metal plate to demagnetize them.
When bringing them back in we’d run a magnet along the binding to reactive it.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Companies actually also sell dummy sets of security gates, just for the deterrent effect. Give it a try!

Anonymous 0 Comments

What are you talking about? I’ve literally never seen metal detectors at a library

Anonymous 0 Comments

Probably the same as retail stores sticking their security tags on things. The tags themselves look like barcodes but underneath them there is a magnetic strip. They probably dont have barcode like tags but the idea is the same.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Answer: They actually have the metal inserts you think aren’t there. They are usually concealed as a small stick w the magnetic strip on it in the spine of the dust jacket, or under an extra adhered sheet in the front or back of the book.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I think they have some sort of magnet, I used to work in my high school library and before we checked books out to other students we had to rub the binding against some metal… demagnetizing block? Thing?

Edit: after reading the comments I finally understand what I was even doing, 9 years after the fact 😌

Anonymous 0 Comments

In highschool i took the security tags out of a few xboxgames i got at the bargain bin and i stuck them under the cart for the projector, and for a few weeks every time someone rented a projector the alarms would go off