In the “keeping up with the times” department, did you know that there is an iPhone application that can create and store collections of scannable bar codes on the phone? The app was designed to store the bar codes from all of those keychain tags, and bonus member reward or “shopper’s club” cards that we carry around for our favorite stores.

Apparently it works for library card bar codes too. A recent thread on the Publib e-mail list discussed the fact that libraries are starting to see patrons using their iPhone instead of a library card at the self-check machines!

Who knew? Well, maybe those of you with iPhones knew.

A brief description of the app is available on the lifehacker blog.