June 26, 2012
This large network of academic, special, and public libraries chose Primo to provide a superior discovery experience for researchers Paris, France—June 26, 2012. Ex Libris® Group, a world leader in the provision of library technology solutions, is pleased to announce that the Library Network of Western Switzerland (RERO) has selected the Ex Libris Primo® discovery and delivery solution. The network includes the universities of Geneva, Fribourg, Lausanne, and Neuchâtel; the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Western Switzerland; and four colleges of education. Primo will complement the network’s current Ex Libris solutions—the SFX® OpenURL link resolver and the MetaLib® federated search system. Following a thorough evaluation of commercial discovery products, RERO chose Primo for its international reputation in academic institutions and unmatched flexibility in consortial implementations. ”We were looking for a system that would provide access via a single interface to the electronic resources and to the vast collections of the 240 libraries in the network,” commented Ms. Marylene Micheloud, director of RERO. ”It is important to us that users continue to be able to access library services such as renewals and loan requests, and therefore the ability to integrate Primo and our ILS via APIs is very appealing. Access to the Primo Central Index of scholarly e-content will also provide a major benefit to our user community, which includes both academic researchers and the public of French-speaking Switzerland.” Marc Daubach, corporate vice president and general manager of Ex Libris Europe, noted: ”The RERO network is a major addition to the European Primo community. RERO joins many large consortia in Europe that have chosen Primo to provide the particular consortial deployment that suits their unique requirements. With its diverse user community, RERO will indeed benefit from ScholarRank, the Primo relevance-ranking technology. In version 4 of Primo, ScholarRank leverages users’ search context to help them discover items that are appropriate to their level of expertise and their area of research. We are looking forward to strengthening our relationship with RERO during the implementation of Primo.” About RERO RERO, an acronym for Réseau Romand (French-speaking Network), is the network of libraries in western Switzerland. Founded more than 25 years ago following the decision by several major libraries to collaborate, RERO now includes most academic, public, heritage, and special libraries in the cantons of Geneva, Fribourg, Jura, Neuchâtel, Valais, and Vaud, as well as the Courts of Confederation (2 of the included cantons are bilingual French-German). RERO manages a catalog of about 240 libraries serving over 280,000 registered readers and 50,000 students in four institutions of higher education (the universities of Geneva, Fribourg, Lausanne, and Neuchâtel); the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO); and teacher training colleges (Vaud, Valais, Fribourg, and BEJUNE). The RERO shared catalog is available online at http://opac.rero.ch. It provides access to some 5.7 million bibliographic references and 222,400 periodicals, of which 3,169 are electronic journals. For more information, see http://www.rero.ch/. About Ex Libris Ex Libris is a leading provider of automation solutions for academic, national, and research libraries. Offering the only comprehensive product suite for electronic, digital, and print materials, Ex Libris provides efficient, user-friendly products that serve the needs of libraries today and will facilitate their transition into the future. Ex Libris maintains an impressive customer base consisting of thousands of sites in more than 80 countries on six continents. Dedicated to developing creative solutions in close collaboration with customers, Ex Libris enables libraries to maximize productivity and efficiency and, at the same time, greatly enhance the user experience. By empowering users to discover and obtain the information they need, libraries ensure their position as the bridge to knowledge. For more information about Ex Libris Group, see our Web site, join us on Facebook, view our videos, and follow our Twitter page.
