September 28, 2006
Centurion, South Africa and Boston, MA—September 28, 2006. Sabinet, the online information solution provider to libraries in the academic, business, and government sectors in South Africa, and Ex Libris™, a global provider of library technology solutions, announced today that SACat – a cooperative database of all library stock in southern Africa – can now be searched by MetaLib®, the Ex Libris library portal and metasearch tool, in parallel with other MetaLib search targets.
SACat is a national union catalogue, reflecting the holdings of libraries in Southern Africa. The SACat database contains bibliographic information on more than 3,8 million books, periodicals, audio-visual material, as well as South Africas historic national catalogs.The new SACat configuration becomes part of the rapidly growing MetaLib knowledge base, and is available immediately to all MetaLib customers through the Ex Libris knowledge base service.
“We are pleased to be able to offer SACat to libraries and their end users, and to South African users in particular, said Karen Groves, the MetaLib product manager. This new addition to the MetaLib knowledge base, illustrating Ex Libris commitment to our African customers, follows our recent pledge of a free, hosted SFX® service for the University of Lesotho. We plan to introduce configurations for more African resources and services in the near future.”
“Sabinet aims to provide a comprehensive information service for South African customers, commented Marco McKenzie, product development manager at Sabinet Online. SACat is a key part of that service as it covers books, journals, conference proceedings, standards and technical reports from South African higher education institutions. We recognize that more and more libraries are using federated search solutions, and we aim to increase usage of SACat via such systems.”
About Sabinet:
With a sound history of 22 years in the information industry, Sabinet is firmly established as a leader in facilitating electronic access to information. Sabinet is one of a limited number of companies in this industry with a long track record of experience and effectiveness in addressing the diverse needs of a large and continually growing client base, spanning the corporate, academic, and government markets.
The company is renowned for understanding, and catering for, the needs of information users across a broad spectrum of markets, and strives to bring a total solution to its clients online information needs by using specific elements from its portfolio of products and drawing on both its technical and people skills.
As a member of the Proudly South African, a campaign to promote South African companies, products and services which are helping to create jobs and economic growth in our country, Sabinet fully supports the campaigns objectives.
For additional information about Sabinet, please see: http://www.sabinet.co.za
About Ex Libris:
Ex Libris is a leading worldwide developer and provider of high-performance applications for libraries, information centers, and researchers, with installations in 63 countries. ALEPH® 500, the Ex Libris integrated library solution, has been installed at over 1700 sites worldwide. MetaLib, the information portal for library collections, and SFX, the context-sensitive linking solution for heterogeneous electronic resources in the scholarly information environment, have collectively been purchased by over 1000 institutions in 40 countries. DigiTool®, a solution for the construction of digital collections, and Verde®, the electronic resource management (ERM) system, have been warmly adopted by customers worldwide.
Primo®, the newest addition to the Ex Libris product suite, is our next-generation, user-centric discovery and delivery solution.
