RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology is proven to be a promising alternative in relieving the library staff from time-consuming routines. RFID is an innovative automated library system for automatic identification and tracking of library material. An automated library with the support of RFID technology would be a “Booksmart Library” and a “self service station” that insists least intervention by library personnel. RFID technology is helpful in taking inventory, finding missing items and identifying misfiled items. Tags or transponders, the vital components of RFID, are the electronic chips consisting of an integrated circuit and antenna coil that communicate with a reader by means of a radio frequency signal. Since RFID does not require ‘line-of-sight’ between the transponder and the reader, it surmounts the limitations of other automatic identification devices, such as bar coding. Smart labels/tags are designed for lasting to lifetime of the item they identify and also perform the EAS (Electronic Article Surveillance) function to detect the thefts.
Radio frequency Identification (RFID) technology has become a hot topic in the fields of supply chain management and manufacturing. RFID has emerged as part of a new form of inter-organizational system that focuses to improve the efficiency of the processes in the supply chain. Business organizations started taking a hard look at what RFID can do for them and whether they should give further consideration to adopting RFID technology, because it is a technology dramatically changes the capabilities of an organization to acquire vast array of data about the location and properties of any entity that can be physically tagged and wirelessly scanned within certain technical limitations (Coltman et al., 2008). RFID allows any tagged entity to become a mobile, communicating component of the organization’s overall information infrastructure. According to the market research analyst IDTechEx (Das, 2005), the cumulative sales of RFID tags for the year 2006 reached over 2.4 billion and RFID smart labels would be needed in a range of areas, such as retailing, logistics, animal and farming, library services, and military equipment. It has become a novel and exciting research area of technological development, and is receiving increasing amounts of attention from the researchers as well as practitioners.
According to experienced early adopters, and academic researchers, RFID facilitates collaboration between organizations (Cantwell, 2006; Lekakos, 2007). In an e-Government context, RFID provides boundless potential in improving effectiveness, efficiency, and tracking e-Government services much more accurately in real-time reducing processing time delays. A number of factors have led to RFID being utilized more in e-Government. The emergence of common practice standards, the rising appearance of information technology infrastructure, technological advances and the importance of real-time intelligence have prompted a surge in the popularity and use of RFID. The different applications of RFID technology have experienced success in various fields, especially in business and many new developments for further RFID use are in the works (Wyld, 2005).
This paper explores the processes in e-Government where RFID technology could be applied and discusses the benefits of this technology in providing value added e-Government services to citizens. The next section begins with a concise overview of e-Government literature, followed by a technical background of RFID. The benefits of RFID are discussed, followed by the findings of how RFID influences the various areas of e-Government services. Following the literature review, a conceptual model for RFID adoption in e-Government is given illustrating the various issues and challenges and how they would impact the RFID adoption in e-Government. Research propositions are evolved from the model and suggested for further research. Finally, the limitations and the areas for further research are discussed followed by concluding remarks.
