June 1, 2005
Oslo, Norway
Bibliotekenes IT-senter AS (BIBITS), the exclusive distributor of Ex Libris products in Norway, is pleased to announce that a group of 23 public libraries and 15 senior-high school libraries in Oppland have chosen the MetaLib® portal and the SFX® link server for the group’s common library portal.
Gunhild Aalstad, head of the Oppland county library, commented, The main goal of our MetaLib implementation is to present all the library catalogs and digital collections in a single user interface. Because many patrons use more than one library, this unified approach will give them a complete overview of the collections that are available to them, regardless of which library they belong to or which type of media they are searching for. This implementation will also give libraries an opportunity to cooperate in collection development and to improve interlibrary lending.
As part of the new library portal in Oppland,” added Ms. Aalstad, MetaLib will serve as a foundation of our seamless library. Our libraries will develop various services, which the portal will present to our end users. Thus, our users will be able to put together the library services that suit them best.
We are very pleased to see the expansion of MetaLib and SFX in Norway, said Ms. Jenny Walker, VP marketing at Ex Libris. Public libraries in Norway are now following the lead of academic institutions in implementing MetaLib to provide easy, friendly access to the libraries collections and related services. Norway and its Scandinavian neighbors continue to set the trends for user service and library innovation.
About the Oppland County Library Project:
Oppland has 26 public libraries, which serve 187,000 inhabitants. Of those libraries, 23 are partners in the MetaLib project, along with 15 senior-high school libraries. These libraries use three different library systems: ALEPH, Mikromarc®, and Bibliofil. The MetaLib implementation is part of an Oppland County library project, the Seamless Library in Oppland, funded in cooperation with ABM-Utvikling (the Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority).
About Bibliotekenes IT-senter:
Bibliotekenes IT-senter is the leading vendor of library solutions in Norway. The company is the Norwegian distributor of Ex Libris products and also develops the library system Mikromarc® for small and medium-size libraries in the Norwegian and Swedish markets. The company runs a hosted library solution for 550 libraries. In addition, Bibliotekenes IT-senter is the distributor of NetLoan, a solution for administering public Internet terminals.
For more information, link to www.bibits.no.
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.
