RFID and Magnetic strips
Many libraries use either RFID or the magnetic strips that notify staff when a patron goes through a set of gates to detect if an item has been properly checked out. With self checks becoming all the rage, it is very tempting to lean primarily on this form of security to keep items from being stolen off of your shelves. If you decide to do this, be prepared to spend a great deal of money in replacement costs, time searching for missing items and headaches from patrons complaining about the lack of choice items on your shelves.

Before RHPL purchased lock boxes for their DVD collection, we lost roughly 10-20 DVD's a week to thefts. Walking through the stacks to help a patron find something, we would find a stack of empty DVD cases. The thefts were so bad at a nearby library for similar items (Clinton-Macomb Public Library) they had to call in the police and organize a sting operation to catch the culprits. RHPL has magnetic strips, CMPL has RFID. No system is fool proof. But some systems are more fool proof than others. RFID, and magnetic strips both have their weaknesses. In order to exploit the weaknesses in these systems however, one does need a bit of privacy not to arouse suspicions, and a bit of time. Even if you have heavy self check, there are other options that can buy you that small bit of time required to deter would be criminals.

Lock Cases
Their are several kinds of lock cases on the market. Some are better than others for various reasons, all require a substantial amount of money to employ. RHPL has tried 3 different kinds over the years. By adding a locked case to your AV security line up, you make theft take that much longer to happen. With only an RFID tag, all the thief would have to do is find a way to get the DVD out of the case in a private area, discard the case, and begin working on disarming the security in whatever manner they were using. With a lock case, now the thief has to remove the item from the case, then get the DVD out. Removing the item from the lock case takes a great deal of effort, and of course, looks highly suspicious to anyone who might see them. A thief may have to bring in an exacto knife, or a screwdriver to try to pry open the case. Since employing the security cases at our library, our theft rate has all but vanished. We have had only two video games go missing in the last 8 months. We have even found two clear examples of the lock cases foiling the thieves.

The clear cases that encompass the entire AV item are perhaps the most secure of the lot. The pros are that they have very thick plastic, allow you to use all the original packaging without too much hassle, and unlock fairly easily with a key. This is the security of choice among most retailers, since the original product does not need to be altered in any way to employ it. This kind of case would also allow you to safely circulate items like PSP and Gameboy games. The negatives to these type of cases become obvious fairly quickly. They are bulky, making DVDs and other AV take up almost double the space they once did, which in turn cuts down on your shelf space drastically. They require a key to open which means you will have to be creative for self check. (see how to use self check with lock cases below). When checked out, you have a large amount of empty cases sitting around taking up space near your check in. And of course check in takes longer, since you have to load up the cases with the media.

The secure cases that lock with a clip come from a variety of sources. We purchased ours from Midwest tape, and chose cases that seemed extra thick (we'll explain in a bit) The cases worked very well as far as security was concerned. We only had a couple of thefts where someone had sliced open the edge of a DVD in order to extract the DVD. This is why we tried to find a thicker plastic, so it would be tough to cut into. The pros of this system are that they take up only the space a DVD takes up and the clips are smaller than the large all encompassing clear cases. The cons are that these cases often did not fit any extra materials that came with DVDs and video games. They did not make these types of cases for PSP or Gameboy type games. And the worst was the unlocking. These clips were not easy to get off the cases. Our circ staff put a lot of stress on their wrists and arms unlocking cases. We decided that if were we going to try to employ self check with locking cases, the public would not be happy with these stubborn clips.

Eventually, we chose the current set up we have for DVDs. We purchased locking cases that locked magnetically. To lock the case, you swipe it in one direction through a special magnetic channel. To unlock it you swipe it the other way. It has the same advantages of the clip locking cases in that it doesn't take up any more space than a typical DVD. It has no clips to keep track of and locking an unlocking is fairly simple. The disadvantage is that sometimes we miss locking or unlocking the items, the lock icon is quite small. Another disadvantage is that even though the cases have a little clip where you can put the extras that come with DVDs and video games, like the instruction manuals, if you use those clips for a bulky insert, it offsets the balance of the magnets inside the units just enough that they no longer lock. Other than that, so far these cases seem to be working out quite well for us.

Even if you want to move your check out process to primarily self check, you can do that with lock cases. There are a few ways this can be done. At West Bloomfield Public Library, they have the clear locked cases that go over the whole DVD. At every service desk they have a key that unlocks the cases. If you bring your check out receipt up to a service desk, they will unlock your cases for you. This is a pretty good method, and librarians there told us that people did not often accidentally take home materials that were locked up. Clinton Macomb Public Library was toying with the idea of putting the declipping device for security cases outside the security gates mounted on a wall. That way, once customers had checked out their items, they could stop on their way out and de clip their items. At RHPL, we have affixed one of the magnetic delockers at each of the self check stations. This seems to work well for us. Only time will tell if eventually thieves will simply walk up and unlock their cases without checking out. In the meantime, we combined the magnetic security strips with the locked cases. Updated 9-18-07 This did happen eventually. And we also had thieves who figured out how to cut open the cases fairly quickly. Below we explain how we have been handling the behind the counter method of security.