June 22, 2005
Jerusalem, Israel
The Ex Libris Group is proud to announce that DigiTool version 3, an enterprise solution for the management of digital assets in libraries and academic environments, has entered the Beta testing stage. Version 3.0 is a major release that introduces new functionality in all aspects of the product and boasts innovative and comprehensive workflows for building institutional repositories, preserving their content, and allowing for its exploration. By facilitating the integration of digital collections with institutional portals and e-learning systems, institutions running DigiTool are able to provide users with a seamless working environment.
Three carefully selected institutions have partnered with Ex Libris to Beta test this new DigiTool version: University of Maryland, a veteran DigiTool premier partner; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Following Beta testing, general product release is scheduled for August 2005.
Modern academic collections include ever-increasing quantities of digital content, explains Oded Scharfstein, DigiTool Product Manager. The institutions managing these digital assets require tools to organize the content in ways that will allow it to be shared with growing numbers of local end users as well as with other organizations. Faced with this increasing quantity of data and frequently changing technologies, institutions are also beginning to face the urgency of digital object preservation and the complexities that it involves. DigiTool version 3, the industrys most comprehensive digital asset management solution, addresses these and other pressing matters.”
The open architecture of DigiTool version 3 is built around technologies such as Web services (SOAP), XML, XSD, XSL, ODBC, Unicode, and JPEG 2000. As part of the Ex Libris commitment to support industry standards, DigiTool version 3 also supports MARC 21, Qualified Dublin Core, METS, Z39.87-2002 – Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images, OpenURL, Z39.50, and OAI-PMH.
For additional information on DigiTool, please see: http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/digitool.htm.
About Ex Libris:
Ex Libris is a leading worldwide developer of high-performance applications for libraries, information centers, and researchers. A multinational company, Ex Libris has offices around the world. ALEPH, the Ex Libris integrated library solution, has been installed at over 1250 sites in 51 countries. MetaLib, the information portal for library collections, and SFX, the context-sensitive linking solution for heterogeneous electronic resources in the scholarly information environment, have been purchased by more than 830 customers in 36 countries. The DigiTool solution for constructing digital collections and Verde, the new electronic resource management (ERM) system, round out the Ex Libris product suite.
