News from Innovative

Citation

(2003), "News from Innovative", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 37 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/prog.2003.28037cab.002

News from Innovative

News from Innovative

Innovative signs South Bank University

Innovative Interfaces has announced that South Bank University in London will install the Millennium library automation system.

"We were particularly keen on Innovative for a number of reasons. First, it met our overall institutional criteria for being Oracle-based, capable of operating on our favoured platforms. The library staff were extremely supportive of the functionality and felt it to be the best of any other system currently on the market", said John Akeroyd, Head of Learning and Information Services at South Bank University. "It is also a fully integrated system with well-developed functionality. We are keen on the opportunities to customise and deliver a mixture of multimedia and other resources through the Millennium system."

South Bank is a large, modern institution with a diverse multicultural population of some 17,500 students and approximately 1,000 staff. The courses offered are flexible and closely linked to the needs of industry and the professions, with particular specialities in estate management, business studies, management, languages and law, social sciences, arts, media studies, digital media and video production, and English.

Innovative Interfaces announces OpenURL WebBridge linking with OCLC

Innovative Interfaces has announced that users can link between its WebBridge product and the OCLC FirstSearch® service as well as the OCLC ILLiad Resource Sharing Management software via OpenURL-compliant link servers. From the WebBridge OpenURL resolution server – the resource linking component of Innovative's integrated portal solution, MAP (Millennium Access Plus) – users can link to journal articles available through FirstSearch, metadata and holdings information through the WorldCat® database (the OCLC Online Union Catalogue) via FirstSearch, and OCLC ILLiad Resource Sharing Management software. WorldCat can also send an OpenURL to WebBridge, augmenting WorldCat content with WebBridge's related resources.

"Library users have access to an increasing number of electronic resources", said Frank Hermes, Vice President, OCLC Cooperative Discovery Services. "OCLC is creating access points to WorldCat and other OCLC services from a variety of partner services. These valuable partnerships give libraries an added presence in a complex online environment, helping users find reliable, authoritative information their libraries provide".

Innovative and OCLC have both developed products that meet the OpenURL standard. OpenURL, a Web-based protocol for transmitting metadata, increases the visibility and accessibility of resources by providing a way to link an information resource and a library service component such as WebBridge. This partnership makes the library's collection more visible to information seekers. WebBridge users that subscribe to FirstSearch services can enable bi-directional links allowing users to connect to FirstSearch services through the WebBridge OpenURL resolution server or vice versa.

"In a Web-based environment, it is increasingly crucial for information to be accessed quickly and efficiently. WebBridge offers libraries a smart linking capability, enabling libraries to link information resources together when appropriate", said Laurie Davidson, Product Manager at Innovative. "This partnership enables resources that libraries provide through FirstSearch to be fully integrated with the Millennium system via the WebBridge resolution server".

Stirling University chooses Millennium

Innovative Interfaces has announced that the University of Stirling in Scotland has chosen to install the Millennium library automation system. Millennium will replace the library's existing Dynix system.

"Stirling University Library has an established reputation for providing leading edge services to its students – both on and off our three far-flung campuses – and to academic staff", said Dr Peter Kemp, Director of Information Services and University Librarian. "After careful research, the Innovative system was selected on the basis of the company's reputation, the range of products which closely matched our requirements for maintaining and developing library services, and the highly integrated nature of the system. We have ambitious plans for the development of e-learning, involving our library management system and our learning management system, WebCT. We look forward to joining the continually expanding range of Millennium libraries and a long and fruitful relationship with Innovative."

Stirling University Library's experience with library automation goes back to the early 1980s but the requirement to successfully manage the growing range of electronic resources with a restricted staffing resource required a system that could exploit today's opportunities with minimal development and support work.

Bob Radford, Innovative's Director of Northern European Sales said, "Innovative is pleased that Stirling has chosen Millennium to take its provision of library facilities forward. Stirling will be joining an increasing number of Innovative libraries in the UK that are taking advantage of Millennium's advanced functionality to provide the best possible environment for their academics and students both on and off campus".

Stirling University Library is situated on a campus in central Scotland. Branch libraries serve two other campuses in Inverness and Stornoway, on the Hebridean island of Lewis. The University was established in 1967 and now provides a wide range of courses covering a variety of subject disciplines. The library is a part of Information Services, a successful integration of library, IT, and media services serving a student population of more than 8,500. The library contains about 470,000 volumes and subscribes to about 5,300 journals as well as a wide variety of external electronic information resources.

Warwick University chooses Millennium

Innovative Interfaces has announced that the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, will install its Millennium system during August 2003.

"One of the library's key objectives, within the university's e-strategy, is to enhance its information systems so that we are capable of supporting a digital library environment", said Janet Gardner, Head of Technical Services at the University of Warwick. "The selection of a new generation library management system that would facilitate this and enable the library to make a full contribution to the university's e-learning strategy was therefore a priority for us and, having chosen Millennium, we are confident that we shall achieve this objective."

The University of Warwick is one of the UK's leading research universities, consistently ranked in the top five. It is located on a leafy, 700-acre campus in the heart of England, adjacent to the city of Coventry and on the border of Warwickshire. It was awarded its Royal Charter of Incorporation in 1965 and, in the same year, admitted its first 450 undergraduate students. The University of Warwick's student population numbers nearly 19,000 with approximately 4,000 staff and faculty.

"We are particularly impressed with Millennium's electronic serials management and excited by the opportunities for developing services to users through MAP, which we believe will enhance our role in content provision for the university's developing virtual learning environment", added Gardner. "Moreover, when we began the process of selecting our new ILS, we very much hoped to find a system which would enable us to manage and display the XML records of our important archive holdings side-by-side with records for the library's resources on the same platform. In MetaSource, that hope will become a reality."

The library has over 25,000 registered users and a staff of around 150. Its holdings comprise about 1 million printed volumes, 10 kilometres of archives, about 11,000 journals (of which more than 8,000 are electronic) and more than 200 subscription databases.

Bob Radford, Innovative's UK Business Manager, said, "Innovative is particularly pleased to have been selected by such a prestigious university for both traditional library management and digital collections management, including advanced universal searching and context-sensitive linking provided by MAP, as well as our XML-based MetaSource products. The University of Warwick will be at the cutting edge of libraries worldwide when they install later this year".

For further information please contact: Innovative Interfaces, 3 York Court, Upper York Street, Bristol BS2 8QF, UK. Tel: +44(0) 117 975 1021; Fax: +44(0) 117 924 4367; E-mail: bob-radford@iii-Europe.com; URL: www.iii.com