Library management is a part of institutional management, institutions spend huge budgets on procurement of library resources, especially on books. It becomes eminent for library custodians to be held accountable due to its physical form. Stock verification is a part of collection management. It is considered as an administrative instrument of accountability. There is abundant literature available on the applications of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in libraries, but there is far less documentation of the operational and procedural difficulties, especially during stock verification using an RFID handheld scanner. The purpose of the current study is to identify difficulties such as the non-reading of RFID tags and to explore the possibilities of minimizing them for an efficient stock verification exercise. Based on internal documentation spanning nine years, this research provides a first-hand account of the experience of stock-taking using an RFID handheld reader at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) Library, Bangalore. The placement of the RFID tag on a book, programming, reading distance and reading angle of the scanner, and the number of RFID handheld tag readers are the key factors to the success of scanning. The study also discusses technological and non-technological constraints for unsuccessful RFID tag reading. This could help library managers in accurately planning and executing proper stock verification. This study is limited to the printed books housed in a small academic library setup.