It's funny you mention this - we had some ECE students build this exact thing for us for one of their projects. They ended up being $100/piece and required a plugin. They used wifi (definitely some room for improvement there) to notify a web interface and an infrared sensor to detect if people were there. It was a really neat project, the cost and implementation requirements just pushed it out of range to deploy it on a library-wide scale right now.

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andreas Orphanides
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 5:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Way to record usage of tables/rooms/chairs in Library

If I were feeling really ambitious -- and fair warning, I'm a big believer that any solution worth engineering is worth over-engineering -- I'd come up with something involving light sensors (a la a gate counter) mounted on the table legs, just above seat height. Throw in some something something Arduino or Raspberry Pi, and Bob's your uncle.

I find myself more intimidated by the practicality of maintaining such a system (batteries, cord management etc) than about the practicality of this implementation, actually.

-dre.

On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 7:59 PM, Thomas Misilo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if anyone has been asked before to come up with a way 
> to record usage of tables.
>
> The ideal solution would be a web app, that we can create floor plans 
> with where all the tables/chairs are and select the "reporting time", 
> say 9PM at night. Go around the library and select all the 
> seats/tables/rooms that are currently being used/occupied for statistical data.
>
> We would be wanting to go around probably multiple times a day.
>
> The current solution I have seen is a pen and paper task, and then 
> someone will have to manually put the data into a spreadsheet for analysis.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Tom
>