February 19, 2015
Innovative library solutions from Ex Libris are now increasing staff efficiency and improving the user experience
Hamburg, Germany – February 19, 2015. Ex Libris® Group, a global leader in library automation services, is pleased to announce that the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (HTWK Leipzig) is the first institution in Germany to go live with Alma. A fully cloud-based library management solution, Alma enables all collections and resource types—whether electronic, print or digital—to be managed within a single system. Five additional German-speaking institutions are due to go live with Alma in the coming months.
Whilst Alma manages all of the Library’s media types in a unified system, Primo, the discovery and delivery solution from Ex Libris, enables users to search all resource types from a single user-interface, and receive a single, relevance-ranked result list.
”The combined management of all types of media in Alma and the ability to easily integrate external systems will enable us to considerably improve the efficiency of our operations. Statistics and data that we gain by using the analysis tool Analytics will not only facilitate decision-making processes but also support the targeted improvement of our services,” commented Astrid Schiemichen, director of the HTWK Leipzig Library.
”With the implementation of Alma and Primo, we are consciously going a step further than other institutions. This decision shows that HTWK Leipzig is not just innovative in terms of research and teaching but also in its administrative duties,” stated Chancellor Professor Swantje Heischkel. ”One of the many advantages of Alma is its cloud-based infrastructure and the reduction in operational and IT costs which are related to this. The data is always up to date and our Library can concentrate its resources on supporting users in their learning and research.”
Christoph Frech, sales director for northern and central Europe, commented: ”I am pleased to see the first Alma institution live in Germany and would like to warmly welcome HTWK Leipzig to the worldwide Alma community. We are looking forward to seeing many more Alma customers in the German-speaking region this year.”
About the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences
With about 6,300 students, HTWK Leipzig is Saxony’s largest University of Applied Sciences and one of the largest in Germany. For more than two hundred years, the University and its predecessors have been providing high-quality, career-relevant education in a diverse range of fields through innovative courses, excellent teaching and state-of the art facilities.
HTWK Leipzig’s new university library, completed in 2009, offers students ”a study environment that many a prestigious university can only dream about”, as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany’s most important national newspapers, stated in a recent article. With its award-winning architecture, state-of-the art facilities, spacious reading rooms and nearly 10,000 meters of shelf space packed with specialised literature, the library lives up to Leipzig’s reputation as a city of books. The Library is home to nearly 300,000 books, journals and audio-visual items. Its website serves as the primary source of electronic information, offering students and staff 24-hour access to the online catalogue, German and international databases, more than 24,000 full-text journals, as well as theses, tutorials and much more.
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 90 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.
