Each symbology has disadvantages and advantages of readability, ease of printing and the range of information that can be encoded. If you are choosing a symbology to use in a new library then choose from the standard few that are used in the industry - see the sidebar on features of different codes. Printing Printing bar-codes can be achieved by a wide variety of PC packages on all the standard types of printer e.g. laser, ink jet and dot matrix. Special on demand labelers are also available. Larger libraries generally find that the trouble of printing their own codes is just not worth it since there are many commercial printing service providers available who will print codes of guaranteed readability.
Labels come in varying grades of permanence - ask for permanent adhesive .
Although your software will generally help sort things out by refusing duplicate accession numbers to be added, once duplicates in the system they can cause havoc. Suppliers of barcode printing requisites can be found in the Directory section. Make sure that you get the correct type of connector. You can also connect a barcode reader to the serial port of a PC and run software on the PC that interfaces with your application when the codes are read. All of these schemes work and each have their advantages.