tech thought...

[Sarlon]

a friend suggested QR barcodes?

[Gizmo]

We use a special excel/word add on at work to create the barcodes - it works like a font. The boss has a scanner for them that looks like a supermarket hand scanner - its old so I'm not sure where he gets it.

[Chromatix]

There are usually barcode scanners on sale in most large computer and office supply stores. They'll usually work with traditional linear barcodes.

Printing barcodes and associating them with other information would be a completely separate topic, and there are many ways of doing it.