If There Is a Problem, the Exit Gate Remains Locked
An Ohio town has solved its overdue book problem and eliminated the entire circulation staff at the town library with a new high tech system that uses computer chips implanted in patrons’ arms and on the spines of books.
Delighted Lansdown, Ohio town fathers report that not one library book has been stolen and that the overdue book rate has dropped to zero since installing the My Pet Goat system, manufactured by Cotswald Industries, a Baltimore, Maryland high tech company.
“You would have to say we are wildly happy and enthusiastic,” said Glenda Hutchinson, chairwoman of the Library Board. “Just two months ago we were discussing with the Town Council the possibility of throwing overdue book scofflaws into jail until they brought our books back.”
Civil liberties lawyers had attacked the incarceration plan, pointing out that someone held in jail would find it difficult to return overdue library books, since he or she would be in jail and the books would presumably be at their home.
The heart of the My Pet Goat system is a computer chip installed under the skin of every library patron at the time they apply for a library card. The chip identifies each patron and constantly communicates with a central computer while the patron is in the library.
Each book in the library also has a computer chip that communicates with the computer. Instead of standing in line at the circulation desk to check out books, patrons simply leave the library with their books in hand. A patron’s Personal Arm Chip and all the chips of the books being carried from the library talk to the central computer. If everything is in order, a motorized security gate opens and permits the patron to leave.
If there is a problem — someone is about to steal a book, for example — the gate remains locked and an alarm sounds. The library’s armed guard intervenes.
“I’m happy to report that the entire circulation staff has been transferred to the Department of Book Shelving and that for the first time in the one hundred and sixty-year history of the Lansdown Free Library there is not a single book sitting on a cart waiting to be put back on the shelf,” Hutchinson said. “That is the kind of productivity you get from this technology.”
But what about getting the patron to return a book?
Two days before the book is due, the Personal Arm Chip will alert the patron with a tiny jolt of electricity once every hour. Each jolt is perceived as a tingling sensation. One day before the due date, the jolts are delivered once every 30 minutes. On due day, they will come once every five minutes.
When the book officially becomes overdue, the jolts are delivered once a minute and will grow in intensity with each passing day. The only way the library patron can stop the pain is to either return the book or ask a doctor to cut open the arm and extract the Personal Arm Chip.
“So far, only one person has had the chip removed,” Hutchinson said. “We got the book back even so, because we have an agreement with all of Lansdown’s doctors that they won’t remove a chip unless the patron brings the books along with them to the doctor’s office.”
She said the patron tried to remove the chip at home with a hunting knife, without success. By the time the patron — and the overdue book — made it to the doctor’s office for a chip extraction, some blood had smeared the cover of the book.
“It was a small price to p ay to get the book back,” Hutchinson said.