The new municipal library of Lindau opened its doors on February 26, 2008. Light-flooded rooms with sophisticated color schemes provide an ideal setting for the clear presentation of some 30,000 media. A modern library has been created which invites users to linger and browse. The introduction of RFID technology frees up staff so that they can dedicate more time to service and consultation. Thanks to full integration in WinBIAP, the people of Lindau can now check out their media themselves and even pay their fees at the SelfCheck. The result: greater discretion for visitors, who can now carry out two procedures at a single machine, and free resources for staff.

There were several factors which made Ludger Bült-Albers, Head of the Municipal Library, to opt for the BiblioChip RFID system: "The new premises give us three times the space we had before. We also want to increase our stocks over the next two or three years to 50,000 media. Our visitor figures have almost quadrupled over the last four years. We have had to deal with all these positive changes with our existing staff for the time being. The aim of introducing a contemporary, visitor-friendly automation system is to free our staff from technical and administrative tasks so that they can offer more personal consultation. And ultimately one thing was clear: for a new facility, we could only consider the most effective technology for the safeguard and circulation of media.”

This is the background to the use of the pay function at the automatic check-out machine. Visitors can carry out two procedures at the same time at one machine: they can check out media and pay fees - quickly, simply and discreetly. In Germany, the Lindau Municipal Library is the first library to have installed the two SelfChecks Munich with this additional function.

The installation of the BiblioChip system and full integration in the library software WinBIAP ran smoothly and was completed in just a few weeks. “WinBIAP has been operating in our library reliably and to our satisfaction for nine years. So we wanted to fully integrate the RFID system in our existing software as simply as possible. Thanks to the professional collaboration between datronic and Bibliotheca, an extremely user-friendly and reliable solution has been created – equally simple to use for our staff and our patrons,” says Ludger Bült-Albers.

Hartmut Marder, CEO of Bibliotheca Germany, and Siegfried Fendt, Head of IT with datronic, are in full agreement: “With this successful joint project we have started a productive partnership for the future. Professional technological expertise has been sensibly combined. At a personal level, too, the teams in Lindau were a perfect match. All this guarantees quality.”

All in all: Lindau’s new start has taken place in optimum conditions thanks to the effective cooperation of all those involved under clear guidelines provided by the library.

More on the library at www.lindau.de.