RFID tags on documents

Daniel Fennessy <dfennessy [at] gmssa__com__ar> writes

>Normally, as with library books or older documents that are bound
>together, an RFID tag can be fastened to the inside of the cover
>without causing any harm to the piece. Our case presents a
>particular problem as many of the archives are unbound and remain in
>individual sheets, such as letters. Our fear is of course that an
>RFID tag, in other words the adhesive of the label, would not only
>be unsightly, but could damage the document. ...

An excellent resource for information on intelligent data tags
(including RFID) is Bert Moore, formerly the Director of the trade
association for intelligent data acquisition technologies, and now
Director of IDAT Consulting and Education.

Bert is extremely knowlegeable in formats that we have used and
those we have not yet experimented with in museums; he can be
reached at bmoore<-at->idat<.>com

We worked together a few years ago to develop a way to print
accession numbers in both human and machine readable format on
acid-free tissue for safe application to artifacts, as an
alternative to increasingly illegible hand-written numbers and to
provide a faster way to inventory and track collections movements,
especially after disasters.

(Unfortunately the original client changed its mind; if anyone would
like to sponsor this we could start again with a great deal of the
work already done.)

Anyone interested should contact Bert directly for
advice/consulting.

Lisa Mibach


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 22:68
                   Distributed: Monday, May 18, 2009
                       Message Id: cdl-22-68-004
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