Just a crazy thought, but it could be useful for small libraries or to use a smartphone/tablet as a mobile terminal for librarians. Use a JavaScript library like quaggaJS [0] to turn smartphone cams (or webcams on notebooks) into a barcode reader. -) Add an option to the system preferences to enable JS barcode reader (e.g. "Use mobile device cam as barcode reader: disabled | enabled | on mobile devices only | user/session defined ...") -) If enabled, an additional button (e.g. with font awesome barcode symbol) next to the header search field (e.g. between input form and submit button) -) The barcode button opens a modal with the barcode scanner to get patron id or item id -) Also add a barcode button to the checkout field in circulations for reading item barcode. Example implementations are available at [1] and [2] [0]: https://github.com/serratus/quaggaJS [1]: https://ourcodeworld.com/articles/read/460/how-to-create-a-live-barcode-scanner-using-the-webcam-in-javascript [2]: https://a.kabachnik.info/a-javascript-barcode-reader-with-bootstrap-3-and-quaggajs.html
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 23641 ***