From the 'News Desk"
LIBRARIES START TO ACCEPT VIRTUAL LIBRARY CARDS
Smartphone apps such as CardStar and KeyRing allow consumers to load onto their mobile devices all the plastic rewards cards dangling from their key chains, and more of these consumers are now using the same apps to load their library cards onto their phones.
This is presenting a growing challenge for the circulation desk, as library workers have to decide whether library policy acknowledges the virtual card and also whether a scanner can read it.
At Sacramento Public Library’s, CA, 28 branches, smartphone apps have been used only about 40 to 50 times to check out materials, but the library changed its circulation manual in October to make clear that “these are to be accepted as valid library cards.” The readers in Sacramento can scan the cards, and they work with most of the self-check machines, too.
“I think initially there was some concern about security, but we decided as an institution that...we wanted to make policy based on positive intent rather than expecting the worst,” Manya Shorr, the Central Library supervisor, told LJ.
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