[wolfganghario]

Hello all,
I was wondering if anyone out there has RE linked up to a library turnstiles - or something similar? Essentially we want library users to be able to swipe their library cards at the library entrance, and then have an action be put in their record that they entered the library on that day.
Is this beyond the realms of reality?
Any ideas/suggestions/words of ridicule will all be gratefully received!!!

Many thanks
Lee

Courtauld Institute of Art
London, UK

[mwittman]

This would be an interesting chaining of technologies -- and I imagine a workflow of at least 3 major steps would be involved:

1. Library card reader stores each swipe event in a fashion that is export-able (either via the reader's embedded computer OR a linked general purpose computing platform -- I don't know)
2. A "cron" job exports the swipe data and transfers it to a server accessible by a computer with a RE client installed.
3. RE client computer has a scheduled task that runs a custom RE-API based program that parses the export file (from the server share) and adds an attribute to each RE Constituent record.

Working with the abilities/limitations of the card reader may be the first step of investigation.