Understanding Barcode Labels

Understanding Barcode Labels

By John Barth

The bar code is a tool to efficiently and accurately identify items and collect information. The patent for the bar code was issued to Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in 1952. This first bar code was not the rectangle of thick and thin lines that we now know, but a bull's-eye-type symbol made of concentric circles. It looked much like the rings on the inside of a tree.

Barcode History

Barcodes Sweep the World
By Tony Seideman

Supermarkets are a perilous business. They must stock thousands of products in scores of brands and sizes to sell at painfully small markups. Keeping close track of them all, and maintaining inventories neither too large nor too small is critical. Yet for most of this century, as stores got bigger and the profusion on the shelves multiplied, the only way to find out what was on hand was by shutting the place down and counting every can, bag, and parcel.