January 5, 2011
The Primo customer community continues its rapid expansion, making Primo the most popular discovery and delivery solution in the global academic market
Jerusalem, Israel—January 5, 2011. Ex Libris® Group, a world leader in the provision of library technology solutions, is pleased to announce that the number of academic, national, and research libraries around the world that have opted for the Primo® discovery and delivery solution now exceeds 750, spanning 33 countries.
Some of the recent newcomers to the worldwide Primo community are the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland; the University of Lancaster, in England; and the following institutions in the United States:
- Binghamton University (State University of New York)
- Gonzaga University (Washington)
- Hodges University (Florida)
- Inter-American Development Bank (Washington, D.C.)
- Midwestern State University (Texas)
- Montana Tech of the University of Montana
- North Carolina–Piedmont Automated Library System
- Palm Beach Atlantic University (Florida)
- Princeton University (New Jersey)
- United States Department of Justice Library system
- University of the Incarnate Word (Texas)
- University of Montana Western
The Primo unified discovery platform offers end users a one-stop solution for all their academic research needs, providing access to all the library’s information resources—whether physical, digital, or electronic. Offered as an integral part of Primo, the Primo Central Index is a mega-aggregator of hundreds of millions of scholarly e-resources of global and regional importance that are harvested from primary and secondary publishers and aggregators and from open-access repositories.
Highlights of Primo include the following:
- Comprehensive, intuitive user interface: The result pages from Primo searches offer users records in their entirety—availability information; a preview (for online items); tags, ratings, and reviews; detailed location information; recommendations based on scholarly usage patterns; and more.
- OPAC functionality available in the Primo user interface: Through the integration of OPAC functionality, Primo enables researchers to manage their user accounts directly in the Primo window. These capabilities significantly lower the library’s total cost of ownership.
- Vast collection of authoritative content: Through the inclusion of the huge Primo Central Index, Primo helps researchers obtain hundreds of millions of scholarly e-resources of global and regional importance, with 100% neutral search results guaranteed.
- Superior, configurable relevance ranking: Libraries can control the blending of search results by means of a unique algorithm developed by Ex Libris.
- Easy, powerful administration: Administrative capabilities include a Web-page harvesting capability and institution-based filtering of administrative operations, a feature that facilitates efficient and secure access for consortium administrators.
- Open APIs that enable customer code extensions: Using the Primo APIs and taking advantage of code that other Primo customers post on the EL Commons collaborative Web site, institutions with very few in-house development resources can extend their local Primo implementation.
- Finding users wherever they are: Primo exposes local collections in Google and other search engines, and directs users from the general information available on the open Web to the highly relevant scholarly content that their own library’s discovery and delivery system provides.
- Powerful statistics and analytics: Primo provides presentation-ready reports and statistics related to a wide range of user activities. With these analytics, administrators can readily identify usage trends.
Rebecca Fernandez, associate university librarian for technical services at Midwestern State University, which selected Primo TotalCare, the Primo cloud offering, commented: ”We carried out a rigorous evaluation of discovery systems and found that Primo exceeded all our requirements. We are very much looking forward to offering access to the Primo Central Index, which will enable our users to view the combined search results of our local collections and our electronic holdings.”
”As a Voyager customer for several years, we knew that we could expect a high level of dedication and responsiveness from Ex Libris,” added Ms. Fernandez. ”For this reason, adopting Primo as a cloud service appealed strongly to the library staff. Above all, the collaborative spirit of Ex Libris and its vision of a future characterized by unified library services chime with our long-term strategy.”
Steven L. Baker, dean of the Warren Library at Palm Beach Atlantic University, noted: ”Our decision to adopt Primo and the Primo Central Index has proved to be well worth it, thanks to the thoughtful and systematic transition process carried out by the Ex Libris technical team. The team was extremely receptive to all our needs and consistently responded with solutions beyond our expectations. We are also very impressed with the Company’s ability to offer a full range of discovery solutions, and in particular, we are pleased with the performance of SFX, which replaced our previous link resolver.”
”I am delighted that respected institutions from around the world are continuing to select Primo as a universal discovery solution for the full spectrum of their collections,” commented Nancy Dushkin, vice president of discovery and delivery solutions at Ex Libris. ”We are very excited to see the international Primo community expanding rapidly and passing the milestone of 750 institutions. With the recent release of Primo version 3, we are seeing a rapid adoption of Primo among our Aleph and Voyager customers, as well as users of other integrated library systems. We look forward to working closely with all the new members of the Primo community.”
About Midwestern State University
Midwestern State University is a leading public liberal arts university, located in Wichita Falls, Texas, committed to providing students with rigorous undergraduate and graduate education in the liberal arts and the professions. Through an emphasis upon teaching, augmented by the opportunity for students to engage in research and creative activities alongside faculty and to participate in co-curricular and service programs, Midwestern State prepares its graduates to embark upon their careers or pursue advanced study. The university’s undergraduate education is based upon a comprehensive arts and sciences core curriculum. The understanding that students gain of themselves, others, and the social and natural world prepares them to contribute constructively to society through their work and through their private lives.
For more information about Midwestern State University, see https://www.mwsu.edu/
About Palm Beach Atlantic University
Founded in 1968, Palm Beach Atlantic (PBA) University is a comprehensive, interdenominational Christian university, with a core emphasis on integrating a Christian worldview with the liberal arts and selected professional studies. PBA consists of nine academic schools: Arts & Sciences, Communication & Media, Education & Behavioral Studies, the Gregory School of Pharmacy, the MacArthur School of Leadership, Ministry, Music & Fine Arts, Nursing, and the Rinker School of Business. The university offers more than 60 majors, and the Gregory School of Pharmacy offers a doctor of pharmacy degree. For more information about PBA, see https://www.pba.edu/.
About Ex Libris
Ex Libris is a leading provider of automation solutions for academic 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 academic, national, and research 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 more information about Ex Libris Group, visit our Web site, join us on Facebook, see our Initiatives and Commentary blogs, and follow our Twitter page.
