April 15, 2015
Efficient electronic resource management, improved analytics, and a single search interface for users were among the reasons for their choice
London, United Kingdom—April 15, 2015. Ex Libris® Group, a global leader in library automation services, is pleased to announce that the University of Edinburgh has selected the next-generation Alma® unified resource management solution and the Primo® discovery and delivery solution. Primo will enable the Library to achieve its goal of providing rapid and seamless discovery, access and use of collections. Alma will offer the University of Edinburgh Library automated workflows to improve many of its services, together with comprehensive analytics to provide evidence of its contribution to the institution and to ensure efficient expenditure on library resources.
”In today’s modern research library environment, when we spend 86% of our resources on electronic materials, it is essential that we have a strong electronic resource management system,” commented Stuart Lewis, Deputy Director of Library and University Collections at the University of Edinburgh. ”Currently we rely on manual processes to manage e-resource licences and content, as well as to analyse the return on investment. Alma gives us the enhanced functionality and reporting capability that we require. Additionally, Alma will allow us to review our manual workflows, enabling us to automate and streamline these workflows to improve our speed of service and remove single points of failure. Many of our peer institutions and competitors had moved to a next generation solution and the significant benefits of a change to Alma were apparent to us. Pre-defined reports in Alma Analytics will provide us with clearer and deeper analysis of management information. With Primo, the multiple resource discovery interfaces that we used in the past will be replaced by a unified access point to all library resources, and users’ uncertainty about which tool to use for different types of resources will be eliminated.”
Koby Rosenthal, corporate VP and general manager of Ex Libris Europe, remarked: ”Ex Libris has a longstanding relationship with the University of Edinburgh and we are pleased that they have decided to join the large worldwide community of institutions using Alma and Primo. We are very much looking forward to working with them on this project.”
About the University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh has strategic goals of excellence in education, research and innovation, which contribute to its mission of the creation, dissemination and curation of knowledge. The University of Edinburgh is in the top 40 universities worldwide and has 33,110 students and 12,620 staff (8,907 FTE). The University of Edinburgh’s academic activities are structured around three colleges (Humanities and Social Sciences, Science and Engineering, Medicine and Veterinary Medicine) which between them are made up of 22 Schools.
Edinburgh University Library houses approximately 3.45 million holdings, 1.7 million bibliographic records, 428,000 e-books, 51,000 journal titles, and 420,000 rare books and manuscripts. The use of these collections is substantial, and forms a core part of the library’s activity. The yearly activity currently consists of approximately 1.4 million physical item issues, 5.2 million e-journal article downloads, 1.8 million e-book downloads, and 2.6 million visits to library buildings
The Library’s vision is to provide a library and university collection that is at the heart of education, research and engagement at Edinburgh, with an international reputation for innovation, quality and excellence. The strategic goals include providing excellent services and high quality collections for our users. For more information, see: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/library-museum-gallery
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.
