Four German university-independent art history research institutes across Europe have decided to implement the Alma™ library management system as well as the Primo™ discovery solution from Ex Libris™, part of Clarivate™. The unified Alma and Primo solution offered will upgrade the current joint catalogue ‘kubikat’, based on the jointly operated Ex Libris Aleph 500 library system, to deliver a modern approach delivering superior benefits to staff and users.
The four libraries – Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max Planck Institute; Central Institute for Art History in Munich; Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte/Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art Paris; and the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome – will leverage the ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) services will make their various types of resources even more efficient and technically up to date.
Staff within each library will benefit from a shared data Network Zone in Alma to ensure efficient, cooperative mapping of specific services. With the future software solution, the user experience will be significantly improved as the art library network will continue its successful work with an upgraded joint catalogue based on Primo.
“It’s exciting to see that the prestigious Kubikat libraries are again trusting us to deliver a solution that meets their needs,” said Dana Moshkovits, Sr. Director of Product Management at Ex Libris™. “More and more libraries with unique requirements are finding that Alma and Primo deliver the advanced services to address their challenges today while also preparing them for the future.”
The kubikat catalogue contains over 2.4 million bibliographic records for print media and electronic resources, of which more than 1.2 million are for articles and reviews. It is the largest art-historical library database in the world.
The implementation of Alma and Primo is being carried out as a joint project of the four libraries and is scheduled to go live in April 2025.
