Update: It seems that a modern scanner will effectively send the value of the barcode as a keyboard input. That's all I need.

Original post below:
Simple scripter seeks wisdom on possible personal project challenge to interface to a USB or PS2 barcode scanner from Perl

I have an idea that I'd like to get a USB or PS2 barcode scanner connected to my PC (to use to catalogue backup tapes). It occured to me that Perl might be a good way to interface to it. But I don't really know how this might be done. I was wondering if any of the Monks might be able to just point me in the direction of any info\resources\modules\existing solutions?

This might be too much for me to manage, my Perl history is mostly simpleish: file parsing, CGI & database connectivity. But with that background if I could do something to just get the value of the barcode into a variable in Perl I'm sure I can manage the rest.

Thanking you in advance for any enlightement,

Neophyte 2mths

Updated to change from USB to USB\PS2 as looking at devices it seems both are used.