Jerusalem, Israel — July 27, 2021
The Rapido platform will help the library lower costs, streamline workflows, and improve the user experience
Jerusalem, Israel—July 27, 2021. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is pleased to announce that Brandeis University has gone live with the Ex Libris Rapido™ resource sharing platform. A member of the Boston Library Consortium and a participant in the Rapido early adopter program, Brandeis decided to move from its old broker-based system to the Rapido platform to take resource sharing to the next level. With the new system, Brandeis can fulfill requests more quickly and lower costs significantly.
Brandeis Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources and Discovery Mark Paris noted that implementing Rapido resource sharing at Brandeis will provide a better experience for users and save staff time. “With the Rapido system, users can just click and get it,” Paris explained. “They know exactly what they are going to get and when. Implementing Rapido draws us closer and closer to providing our patrons with an Amazon-like experience—one that users have come to expect. The discovery-to-delivery pipeline is seamless from the patrons’ point of view and is more efficient on the staff side, so it’s a win-win situation for all.”
In addition to being more cost-effective than our previous system, the Rapido solution simplifies our processes so we don’t have to administer more platforms than necessary.
The streamlining of the Rapido library workflows means that staff and patrons no longer have to switch to another system for resource sharing. Brandeis already uses the Ex Libris Alma® library services platform, Primo® discovery tool, and RapidILL™ interlibrary loan system, all of which are now integrated with the Rapido solution.
“I’m really looking for efficiency, and that’s where the Rapido workflows fit in,” said Paris. “In addition to being more cost-effective than our previous system, the Rapido solution simplifies our processes so we don’t have to administer more platforms than necessary. It also enables us to centralize everything through our Alma platform. And our experience with the RapidILL system made the adoption of the Rapido tool easy.”
Charlie Barlow, executive director of the Boston Library Consortium, noted, “The BLC group is very impressed with the success of the implementation at Brandeis, which was a Rapido early adopter representing our entire group. This success, coupled with the promise of future Rapido support for controlled digital lending, makes Rapido very appealing.”
Ex Libris Vice President of Delivery Solutions Sharona Sagi commented, “The partnership with Brandeis University as part of our early adopter program was just outstanding. Mark and the team at Brandeis had a significant impact on the Rapido ecosystem, contributing their experience and connections to help shape our processes for integrating Rapido workflows with those of ILLiad and other Alma implementations. The bold step that Brandeis took of discontinuing its use of both Atlas Systems ILLiad® and OCLC Worldshare® only a week or two after going live is a vote of confidence in the Rapido tool as the university’s sole solution for resource sharing.”
About Brandeis University
Brandeis was established in 1948 by the American Jewish community at a time when Jews and other ethnic and racial minorities, and women, faced discrimination in higher education. Our visionary founders created a nonsectarian research university that welcomed talented faculty and students of all backgrounds and beliefs. From the outset, Brandeis focused on undergraduate education, while building a pioneering research enterprise. For more information see Brandeis University
About Boston Library Consortium
Founded in 1970, the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) is an academic library consortium serving public and private universities, liberal arts colleges, state and special research libraries in the northeastern United States. The BLC members collaborate to deliver innovative and cost-effective sharing of print and digital content, professional development initiatives, and projects across a wide range of library practice areas. For more information, visit blc.org
About Ex Libris
Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is a leading global provider of cloud-based SaaS solutions that enable institutions and their individual users to create, manage, and share knowledge. In close collaboration with its customers and the broader community, Ex Libris develops innovative solutions that increase library productivity, maximize the impact of research activities, enhance teaching and learning, and drive student mobile engagement. Ex Libris serves over 7,500 customers in 90 countries. For more information, see our website and join us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
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