READER ACCESS DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Tender description

The British Library at St Pancras has eleven reading rooms. The Library has a need to collect and report on accurate data on footfall in and out of these rooms, and the patterns of reading room usage. The Library is also considering rolling out the same monitoring system to its reading rooms on its other sites. The Library requires a monitoring system which counts and records with a timestamp all movement in and out of the rooms, using standard “credit-card” size cards, compliant with ISO 7810. Library users are only required to carry their cards with them, not wear them; the Library would, therefore, welcome a system which utilises cards that allow passive interaction from its users, although it would consider other solutions meeting its requirements. The entrances to the reading rooms are approximately 2.3m wide and 3m high; there are also a number of staircases within the reading rooms which require the same monitoring system, and these are of varying widths. The solution needs to work independently of the Library’s current systems, but have the potential to interface with both current and future Library systems. The solution needs to provide accurate data during operational hours. The Library needs to be able to draw reports from the system by card number, reading rooms (and combinations thereof) and time/date. This tender is for the supply of the hardware and the software to run the system; there will be a separate tender for the cards, but the successful supplier will be required to specify the cards required to operate the system, and provide a list of potential suppliers. Installation of the system is not included in this tender. Further information will be provided with the tender documents.