Although retail has been the primary beneficiary of self-checkout technology, other sectors are beginning to see the value in letting customers ring themselves up.
Public libraries across the country are getting in on the act, taking advantage of maturing technology and more affordable hardware to operate more efficiently and provide better service for their patrons.
100-percent adoption — Queens Library, New York
The Queens Library maintains 63 branches and serves 2.2 million residents who speak more than 138 languages. According to the 2000 Census, 54 percent of Queens residents speak a language other than English at home. This adds up to quite a customer-service challenge.
"We're a service business, not a warehouse," said Thomas Galante, Queens Library director. "With 20 million items to be circulated this fiscal year, the mechanics of just getting books and videos out the door was getting in the way of conducting our core business." 
Galante wanted to get the staff out on the floor, helping patrons, instead of being shackled to desks, performing repetitive clerical tasks that were vital but time consuming.
In January of 2005, Queens Library and library technology firm Tech Logic began work on the Personal Payment System (PPS), an RFID-based item identification and security software system that communicates with the existing catalog system and handles things like checkouts and late fees. By June, they were installing test units at the Corona and Court Square branches.
Over the next several months, hardware and software enhancements were made using feedback from both staff and patrons, who were eventually given no other means of performing checkouts.
The Corona branch, heavily used in a culturally diverse neighborhood, has three self-checkout units, and according to Joanne King, associate director of communications, transactions are quicker than at an ATM and conducted in whatever language the user chooses. "You (swipe) the library card, you put the books on the pad, you get the receipt, and walk out the door."
At the two pilot branches, 100 percent of all checkouts are being done through self-checkout, and a full-time technology assistant is on-hand to help customers as needed, but there are no other ways to check out books.
Queens Library is expanding self-checkout to three additional branches, and expects to have the entire system on line within the next three years.
Following the money — Minneapolis Public Library
In Minneapolis, the decision to use self-checkout was driven by necessity.
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"We decided to go into it in a big way, in a serious way, in 2004, when we had a fairly substantial budget cut," said Betsy Williams, director of collections and technical services for the Minneapolis Public Library.
In the wake of a 25 percent reduction of the operating budget and a corresponding round of layoffs, Williams said, "the only way we were going to survive … was to develop some new approaches to self-service."
A team was formed to study the various ways self-serve technology could be deployed, draft an RFP, and deploy a solution.
In early 2005, Libramation installed self-checkout units in four pilot branches. Implementation was rolled out carefully, to work out the bugs and ensure buy-in from patrons and staff. A few months later, four more branches were brought online. Today, there are self-checkout units in all but two of the system's fourteen branches, handling material check-in and checkout; a future upgrade will allow patrons to pay late fees with a credit card.
Patrons can choose between self-checkout and traditional checkout at a service desk. Williams says that the self-checkout units are "extremely user-friendly, the most critical criteria" for getting buy-in.
With the unveiling of the new central branch, designed by renowned architect Cesar Pelli, the library has taken advantage of the buzz to promote self-checkout, with trained volunteers on-hand at each of the eight units to assist patrons and explain the benefits of the system.
On opening day, 10,000 of the 13,000 books checked out were done using self-checkout. Williams plans to have self-checkout handling 85 to 90 percent of total checkouts within the next two years.
Success on a shoestring — Fayetteville, Arkansas
In October of 1997, Louise Schaper became executive director of the Fayetteville Public Library in Fayetteville, Ark. What she found was startling, "a barely viable institution. It wasn't open very many hours. It didn't have very many books. At that time, there were only a few computers in the library and the catalog was still paper."
Schaper began a turnaround project designed to transform the Fayetteville Library from tragedy to triumph, and like libraries everywhere, she had to do it on a shoestring budget. 
One of Schaper's goals was to create value-added services that would enhance the library experience for patrons, like taking librarians away from repetitive tasks and putting them on the floor where they could engage and assist patrons. Self-checkout technology seemed to be the answer.
In 2000, Fayetteville began to study other libraries, curious about self-checkout technology and how it could help them achieve their goals. At that time, the technology was rapidly changing and off-the-shelf hardware was very expensive, so they took their time and crafted a set of criteria.
By summer 2003, the library issued an RFM for an automation system. Polaris Library Systems impressed Schaper with their flexibility in customizing systems for Fayetteville's specific needs and won the contract.
At the same time, a new library was being built and was due to open in late 2004. As the opening neared, there still was no self-check system in the mix, which by this time had become a critical element for freeing staff to perform their redefined roles.
During a trip to Florida, Schaper saw a mobile self-checkout unit used by Delta Airlines. She noted the manufacturer's name, SeePoint, and asked Polaris to contact them to see if they could jointly design a self-checkout system.
It worked, and by October of 2004, when the new library opened, Fayetteville was using the Polaris/SeePoint customized system, which uses a mix of RFID tags and barcodes to track materials. Of the more than 800,000 annual transactions performed at the Fayetteville library, 55 percent are done via self-checkout.
Schaper is very happy with the results, so far. "The good news is that the public found the stations very easy to use. They were very fast. And for us, they were affordable. We now have five of them."
