I operate a small film festival and need an automated, computerized
system for tracking and checking-out the videotape entries we receive.
 I am thinking about a barcode system (a la Blockbuster).  I see
plenty of inexpensive barcode readers for sale online, but no
information about what to hook the barcode reader into, getting
software to support the data being read, etc..  I need to be able to
enter new films into a database, have viewers check the movies out
with their personal information being linked to the library (perhaps
with personal checkout cards -- like a library or Blockbuster).  Can't
afford to spend alot on something like this.  Any feedback on hardware
and software needs for such a system would be appreciated.

All a barcode is is a scanner-readable number. Most barcodes have the
number printed underneath in human-readable form. If you are using a
PC based system, the barcode scanner usually connects with a "wedge"
adapter in parallel with the keyboard; there is no difference to the
software between typing the number on the keyboard and the number
being scanned - it all appears as ordinary keyboard input to the
software. Other systems might use a USB or serial connected barcode
reader, but keyboard wedge is the most common. If you don't have a
scanner or the scanner doesn't pick up a smudged barcode, you just key
it in.

See the FAQ at
http://www.kanecal.net/scannerFAQ.htm

This means you can use a barcode scanner with almost any database, you
just arrange the fields on the form so that when a complete number is
entered (either keyboard or scanned) the 'cursor' jumps to the next
field automatically.

There are several shareware video library management programs
available; the 'home' ones might not support checking movies out to
borrowers. Try shareware resources such as
http://www.brothersoft.com/Information_Management_Database_Programs_Download_List_1.html

One option might be

http://www.tucows.com/preview/290985.html
Winrental - $59 (30 day evaluation)
  "This is a complete video rental store POS system. Use it to keep
track of video, game and DVD rentals. Keep member profiles, send
overdue notices by e-mail and generate rental histories. You can also
scan and print barcodes"

Other software might be too expensive, but some are:

http://www.sharewareriver.com/product.php?id=5400
Video Store - cost $295
 "The Video Store is a complete POS system for the video rental
business. Perfect for any business that does rentals or sales such as
a video store."

http://www.kanecal.net/Inventory-POS-software.html
Bogart Video Store- $175
 "Bogart is a powerful and easy-to-use Point of Sale system that will
help you run your video rental store (movies or tapes)."

http://www.vision-forecasting.com/video.html
Video Vision - cost from $249 for Lite version. Download free 30-day evaluation.
  "The products in the Video Vision range have everything you need to
control, manage and promote your video rental, game rental and DVD
rental business. They have intuitive Windows interfaces that are
extremely simple to learn and use.
  Video Vision Lite is a scaled down version of Video Vision Plus
designed for small stores or stores starting out on a limited budget
who do not yet require the extra power and functionality provided in
Video Vision Plus."

Maybe someone else can find more reasonably priced software.

Owain

You will need a barcode reader, scanner, and software. Here is a
interesting site i found "thanks to google's search engine" to get you
started.http://www.systemid.com/index3.asp If you are wanting cheap
what i would do is simply use a database program and set all of your
user accounts and movies in it. This will require you to manually type
in the information. But you can give out memebership cards with a id
number on them and use that. You would simply enter the user;s info
into the database under the card number, or you could cross referance
with there name. Then everytime someone wants to get a movie from you,
just enter there information and the number you asigned to the movie.
This would take a little time to set up. But once you get it how you
want it updating and entering new users would be simple.

If you are looking for a barebones solution, I would recommend
someting as simple as a modified CueCAT off of ebay
(http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=14929&item=5110681042&rd=1)
  which acts as a keyboard, where when you scan a barcode, it is as if
you just typed in all the data from the barcode.  To track the videos,
i would recommend investing in either a label printer or some labels
which you can use in an existing printer.  You can print whatever you
want on the labels in barcode format by using a barcode font in any
document writing software.  You can download the font free at
bizfonts.com/free  just copy the font file to c:/windows/fonts  though
the path or folders may be different for different operating systems. 
For the archiving software, the cheapest method is to use a simple
spreadsheet, like Excel.  You can use the search/find function to
recall certiain films by any information stored about them in the
spreadsheet.

As for anything else, hardware and software wise, any computer with a
printer, word processor, spreadsheet application and enough speed that
you are happy is all that is required.

Really all you need is an excel spreadsheet and numbered labels. If
you then add barcodes to your labels you can use a barcode scanner to
read them in. The reason I say this is because this is not really a
large circulation base.  However, some of the programs are not that
expensive and the amount involved could be much smaller than your
investment in time.  The vendor sites mentioned in the other comments
would probably contain documentation that will tell you what specific
scanners and printers you can use. With respect to the barcode fonts
found on some of the sites around the internet, you want to be careful
to read the fine print because some of them are really demos that have
some characters mangled or disabled.  If you go ahead and use these,
then you might not discover the problem until you have printed and
applied the labels and are getting errors during scanning. One page
that discusses suitable hardware for video circulation systems is at:

http://platformlabs.com/app/hdw.htm