Information resources and technologies provider ProQuest, US, and library automation solutions provider Ex Libris Group have announced a collaboration to make their key services work better together to improve user experience and support customer choice. The most immediate benefit for mutual customers will be the indexing of dozens of ProQuest's most widely used content databases in the Ex Libris Primo Central Index of scholarly electronic resources. When the first stage of work is completed, ProQuest's ebrary® and EBL-Ebook Library® collections will become discoverable by all Primo Central users as well.
While ProQuest's Summon discovery solution includes this content already for its many customers, enabling its full indexing in Primo Central will further enhance its discoverability to users of the Ex Libris Primo® discovery and delivery solution. To expand choice even further, the companies will also work together to identify and investigate additional points of integration with their respective library management software solutions. Users of the Ex Libris Alma unified resource management service, and libraries using the Voyager or Aleph integrated library system will be able to deploy ProQuest's Summon to make their library collections discoverable, just as Primo can be accessed by ProQuest management customers.
As part of this new initiative, the companies will focus on improving those interactions and further enhance the user experience across their respective discovery and library management solutions.
Ex Libris Alma customers can look forward to operational improvements, including the availability of Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) of titles from ebrary and EBL-EBook Library - allowing efficient end-user input into collection development and reducing work for librarians. Future plans include facilitating more streamlined acquisitions workflows and the integration of holdings updates that will help mutual customers reduce operational costs and benefit from automated and more efficient processes.
ProQuest Intota customers will have the benefit of knowing that interoperability on their behalf is part of the ongoing development focus. This work will evolve through continued collaboration and customers' input - all with a common goal of empowering libraries to best meet their patrons' needs and support their institutions’ mission.
Collaboration activities between ProQuest and Ex Libris are commencing immediately and will be ongoing.
