NEWS

The Ex Libris Primo Community Around the World Continues to Grow

Support for sophisticated consortia and Web 2.0 are among the features that lead institutions everywhere to select the Primo solution

Jerusalem, Israel – Ex Libris™ Group is pleased to announce that a number of institutions in Europe and North America have recently selected Primo® by Ex Libris as their discovery and delivery solution. The newest members of the rapidly growing Primo community include the Catholic University of Leuven, in Belgium; Canada’s University of British Columbia; and two institutions in the United States: Northwestern University, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

“Primo will transform the way students and researchers access our diverse collections, whether print, electronic, or digital,” commented Jo Rademakers, head of library automation at the Catholic University of Leuven. “Primo’s capacity to support complex consortia was a deciding factor for us, as were the product’s Web 2.0 features and open interfaces. All of these elements make Primo stand out as the perfect solution for our library. We are excited to have begun implementation, and we plan to go live with Primo in the spring,” he added.

Rue Ramirez, associate university librarian for library systems and information technology/technical services at the University of British Columbia, emphasized the importance of a usercentric discovery and delivery service for the institution and its library users: “Building on our existing tools, Primo is the best product to serve as an interface to the library’s collections. Our positive experience with the open architecture of Voyager®, MetaLib®, and SFX®—all from Ex Libris—made us keen to select another product with robust APIs. These APIs will enable us to develop code extensions to meet the needs of the library and to benefit the broader Primo community.” A longtime Ex Libris customer, Northwestern University selected Primo in order to provide a unified point of access to their diverse collections, bringing together an array of electronic resources and library catalogs. “We are excited that Primo will dovetail with our existing Ex Libris solutions the Voyager integrated library system, SFX OpenURL link resolver and MetaLib gateway and metasearch portal,” commented Sarah Pritchard, University Librarian at Northwestern University.

“We are very pleased with the expansion of the Primo customer community, which currently numbers over 100 institutions spanning 15 countries and four continents; and are honored that these distinguished libraries have chosen Primo to serve as a universal solution for finding and obtaining the full spectrum of their materials,” Nancy Dushkin, VP marketing at Ex Libris, remarked. “As with all other Ex Libris products, we work in close collaboration with the customer base to continually enhance product functionalities, in order to address the needs of the global market and of libraries of all types and sizes.”

About the Catholic University of Leuven
Situated in the heart of Western Europe, the Catholic University of Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, or K.U. Leuven) has been a center of learning for almost six centuries. Founded in 1425 by Pope Martin V, K.U. Leuven bears the double honor of being the oldest existing Catholic university in the world and the oldest university in the Low Countries. The university has over 34,000 students, about 4,000 of whom are from overseas, and employs around 4,500 researchers. It teaches and supports research in Dutch and English and participates in the Erasmus international exchange program. For additional information on K.U. Leuven, see http://www.kuleuven.be/english/.

About the University of British Columbia
Only 30 minutes from the heart of downtown Vancouver, the University of British Columbia (UBC) holds an international reputation for excellence in advanced research and learning. The spectacular UBC campus is a ”mustsee” for any visitor to the city— where snowcapped mountains meet ocean and breathtaking vistas greet you around every corner. Enrollment has grown from 31,000 students in 199596 to more than 45,000 today, with a corresponding expansion of UBC Vancouver's academic core, including new buildings dedicated to science and engineering, forestry, the health sciences, and the library. For additional information on UBC, see http://www.ubc.ca/.

About Northwestern University
Founded in 1851, Northwestern University is one of the country’s leading private research and teaching universities with an enrollment of approximately 7,900 fulltime undergraduate students and approximately 7,500 fulltime graduate and professional students on campuses in Evanston and Chicago. Northwestern University Library's collection of more than 4.6 million volumes includes a portfolio of distinguished special collections. The library provides access to hundreds of scholarly databases that connect users to the most comprehensive, specialized, and uptodate information resources in their fields, and pursues an active role in educating faculty and students in how to make the best use of these resources. Increasingly, it is prioritizing the digitization of unique materials and collections in order to make them available to any user, any time. For additional information on Northwestern University Library, see www.library.northwestern.edu.