June 25, 2010
The bX service can now be integrated with all link resolvers and discovery interfaces to provide user-focused article recommendations
Jerusalem, Israel—June 25, 2010. Ex Libris® Group is pleased to announce that the popular, unique bX™ scholarly recommender service is now available in even more library interfaces. Launched in May 2009 as an additional service for customers of the SFX® OpenURL link resolver, bX is in use at more than 250 SFX libraries worldwide. A set of newly expanded application program interfaces (APIs) enable any library environment to include the bX recommendations in its interface.
Focused on the scholarly domain, bX is the first service to provide article-level recommendations to library users. The recommendations that bX generates are based on an analysis of hundreds of millions of usage logs from the prestigious SFX customer base and thus reflect the choices of researchers from institutions around the world. Pointing to specific scholarly articles, the recommendations meet researchers’ expectations for up-to-date, Web 2.0 services from their library.
The bX API, which has been available since bX was launched last year, now includes HTML output and automatically checks for the full text of an item, thereby significantly extending the range of available options for integrating bX in a variety of library end-user interfaces. bX customers receive full support from Ex Libris regardless of the environment in which the service is integrated—be it the Primo® discovery and delivery service, the SFX link resolver, or another link resolver.
“I’ve been waiting for this for 25 years,” commented Jeffrey C. Huestis, associate dean for technology at Washington University (St. Louis) libraries and a Serials Solutions 360 Link customer. “Recommendation technology that has been designed specifically for the academic library user is a fantastic enhancement to our library’s suite of online services, and the new bX release ensures that we are not limited by our user interfaces.”
John McDonald, director of information and bibliographic management and faculty relations at Claremont Colleges, also a Serials Solutions 360 Link customer, remarked, ”We can already see via usage reports that our users are getting lots of bX recommendations shown in the 360 Link menu and are making great use of the service there. We’re thrilled to hear our librarians’, students’, and researchers’ positive comments on the new service addition, and we’re looking forward to integrating it into our implementation of Primo version 3 to provide another point of access.”
”We are delighted to now make bX available to any institution that wants to benefit from user-led scholarly recommendations,” noted Nettie Lagace, bX product manager at Ex Libris. ”We are proud of the ongoing expansion of the bX corpus of knowledge, as more and more institutions contribute their usage data, further improving the service for all users. While bX recommendations are based on SFX usage data, the service can be presented within any existing link resolver or discovery interface, and indeed, our goal is to enable libraries to knit bX more closely into the library service framework, whatever their existing services may be.”
To find out more about the bX recommender service and to register for bX, visit the Ex Libris Web site.
About Ex Libris
Ex Libris is a leading provider of automation solutions for academic, national, and research libraries. Offering the only comprehensive product suite for electronic, digital, and print materials, Ex Libris provides efficient, user-friendly products that serve the needs of libraries today and will facilitate their transition into the future. Ex Libris maintains an impressive customer base consisting of thousands of sites in more than 75 countries on six continents.
Dedicated to developing creative solutions in close collaboration with customers, Ex Libris enables libraries to maximize productivity and efficiency and, at the same time, greatly enhance the user experience. By empowering users to discover and obtain the information they need, libraries ensure their position as the bridge to knowledge.
For additional information on Ex Libris Group, see our Web site, visit our Initiatives and Commentary blogs, and follow our Twitter page.
