QR Codes

I’ve seen them everywhere, from websites to advertisements and on the sides of cereal boxes.  Now I finally know what they are, besides funny looking pixelated squares: Quick Response (QR) codes.  According to Hampton, Peach, and Rawlins (2012), QR codes are “two-dimensional barcodes that can be scanned by a mobile device camera” (p. 404).  Interestingly, this technology has been around since 1994, when a Japanese company used it to track manufactured parts.  The company decided not to exercise their patent rights and now the technology is freely available and, apparently, everywhere.

Everywhere now includes libraries.  QR codes have a lot of potential for marketing, it seems.  Unlike conventional barcodes, which can hold between 20 and 40 characters, QR codes can store up to 7, 089 characters (Hampton, Peach, & Rawlins, 2012, p. 405).  Libraries have used them in online catalogs, websites, and to send a book’s call number, title, and author information to a patron’s smart device.

The great part about this is that there are a lot of websites that create QR codes and some of them are free.  To create a QR code for my blog, I used the website https://qrcode.littleidiot.be/.  I just had to paste the website address in and click "Generate B & W."  There was the option to personalize the code, adding a background picture and changing the color, but I chose to leave it alone.  It is probably redundant to put a QR code for my blog on my blog, but, theoretically, if I were to try and increase my social media presence, it would be really helpful to put the code on all of my accounts and connect them.  A library could do the same or create physical displays and include a QR code that would lead the patron to more information about the topic.