Technological Wishlist

The longer I work in a library, the more I wish there was a technological solution for some of what goes on.  A lot of what I think about is RFID potential.  Some of the stuff I'd like:

• Smart shelves:  Able to tell you what books are on them and if they're in order.  But even if all we can get is sum of books on a shelf, misshelved books would be so much easier to find.  Shelves that could be programmed to know what books are supposed to live on them (hopefully easily reprogrammable, like, enter shelf number the call number range or something) and then tell you when they have an intruder would be great.
• Smart security gates:  Able to detect a patron's library card in their pocket/wallet/purse and whatever library materials they have on them, and check out the items as they walk through.  Items not allowed to leave the library or patrons without cards would set off the gate alarm and have to go through the circulation or security process with the desk staff.
• Chat reference widget on our in-building computers: I'm sure these probably already exist, but given that we haven't entirely finagled automatic shutdown of our lab computers at closing, it's probably down the road for us.  Some kind of "click here for chat help" on the desktops would hopefully help those students who don't want to get up and "bother" us at the desk.  I'd add remote desktop support, but really, they're in the same building, and the customer service face-to-face interaction is important in and of itself.
• Useful QR codes: Step one, of course, is teaching students what QR codes are and how to use them.  So many of them have a gadget that will read them; we could do things like put the table of contents for a current print periodical next to its shelf tag, do in-stacks cross-referrals for frequently asked questions ("if you're looking here, you might also find this area over there useful" kind of stuff).  Kind of pro-active reference/instruction out-of-body in the stacks stuff.  Maybe a "Need Newbery/Caldecott books? Scan me!" for that assignment we have most semesters here, and it would pop into our catalog with the search term.
• Decibel sensor auto-shushers.  Okay, not every librarian would go for that.  But if you've got a quiet study area that's not immediately staff-observable, a little sensor that could simultaneously ping the staff and play a little "please refrain from excessive noise in this area" message might help with awareness that, hey, you're in a quiet study space.

There's more that I'm not remembering right now, of course, but I'll remember it when the problem I want it to fix presents itself again.