Jerusalem, Israel — January 24, 2020
The Rapido solution is developed in partnership with a diverse group of leading academic institutions and consortia
Jerusalem, Israel—January 24, 2020. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is pleased to announce that it has begun the development of its new Rapido™ solution for resource sharing and has established the Rapido development partner program. Rapido is built on the Ex Libris higher‑ed cloud platform and will be live by the end of 2020.
Nine U.S. schools—California State University (CSU) Dominguez Hills, CSU Fullerton, CSU LA, CSU San Marcos, Humboldt State University, Bethel University, St. Olaf College, the University of St. Thomas, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison—are participating in the program, along with four Australian institutions—Macquarie University, Monash University, the University of Adelaide, and Australia’s national science agency the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
The development partner program affords members a significant voice in shaping the Rapido system and planning its future roadmap, as well as offering them an opportunity to engage with other development partners regarding the future of resource sharing.
We want to enable our patrons to use our main discovery tool to easily obtain an item through the library—any item, whether or not we own it or license it. 
The aim of the Rapido solution is to make resource sharing an outstanding experience for patrons and staff and was developed using the principles articulated by the Big Ten Academic Alliance and other institutions. For staff, the solution automates and simplifies the borrowing and lending processes, thereby helping staff manage a high volume of requests efficiently. For patrons, Rapido provides a central location where they can find the materials they need with a frictionless experience for getting those materials quickly. Rapido integrates easily with third-party systems—including other interlibrary loan (ILL) provider systems and resource sharing technologies—via standard and open system interfaces.
The Rapido solution is being developed as a natural extension of the RapidILL document delivery service. This means that RapidILL customers will be able, once Rapido is released, to expand their current implementation and benefit from full workflow support as well as patron-facing services.
The Rapido development partners share a mission of reshaping the library software industry by working together on a solution that focuses on offering end users an advanced experience for accessing all types of materials quickly and accurately.
University of Wisconsin–Madison Director of Library Systems and Application Services Bruce Barton noted, “We want to enable our patrons to use our main discovery tool to easily obtain an item through the library—any item, whether or not we own it or license it. And for all but the truly obscure items, we want to be able to respond to a request by immediately providing delivery options. We think the Rapido solution will move library resource discovery and delivery toward that vision.”
CSIRO Senior Manager Thomas Girke commented, “Providing users with fast access to all the information they need to conduct informed and comprehensive research is a high priority for CSIRO library services. This goal can often be difficult to achieve through traditional ILL sources and services. We’re excited to be working with Ex Libris in rethinking the existing environment and developing a new platform to improve the sharing of resources among libraries and, most important, deliver a better experience to users.”
David Walker, director of California State University Systemwide Digital Library Services, said, “We see Rapido as the gateway to the world of library content desired by our students, faculty, and staff and hope to take advantage of an interlibrary-loan system fully integrated into our library services platform and presented in an interface that will be familiar to current and new users.”
Dvir Hoffman, Ex Libris corporate vice president of resource management solutions, commented, “At Ex Libris we continuously strive to meet the expanding needs of academic libraries. We are excited to introduce our user-centered resource sharing Rapido solution, and we are particularly pleased to collaborate with so many prominent institutions to develop a product that will meet the needs of the library of tomorrow.”
About the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
CSIRO is Australia’s science and research agency, focused on creating measurable economic, environmental and social benefits that better the world and Australia’s place in it. Since 1916, CSIRO has been advancing Australia with inventions and innovations that have a positive impact on people’s lives around the world – from household products like Aerogard and Softly to everyday necessities like plastic bank notes and WiFi.
CSIRO provides expertise and knowledge to guide decisions and choices about mineral resource use strategies for the benefit of industry stakeholders and Australian and international communities. Through measuring and modelling the minerals industry’s social license to operate, CSIRO can develop benchmarks for social performance and allow stakeholders to engage with each other on the issues that matter. To learn more, visit https://www.csiro.au/ .
About the University of Wisconsin–Madison
For 169 years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus has been a catalyst for the extraordinary. As a public land-grant university and prolific research institution, the students, staff, and faculty members at UW-Madison partake in world-class education and solve real-world problems. With the Wisconsin Idea as our guiding principle, we’re not only changing the 936 acres we call home-Badgers are also creating a better future for Wisconsin, the national, and the world.
The UW–Madison Libraries are an incredible aggregation of resources, services, learnings spaces, and extensive staff expertise. The UW-Madison Libraries together make up Wisconsin’s world class public research university library system, offering convenient access to print materials; e-books, databases, multi-platform access to thousands of electronic journals 24/7, and article and book delivery from libraries around the world. Our special collections as well as locally created digital resources support the teaching, research, and learning mission of UW-Madison. The UW-Madison Libraries are an essential partner to advancing the Wisconsin Idea, and engaging in local, state, national, and global collaborations and initiatives. To learn more, visit https://www.wisc.edu/ .
About the California State University
The California State University is the largest system of four-year higher education in the country, with 23 campuses, 52,000 faculty and staff and 481,000 students. Half of the CSU’s students transfer from California community colleges. Created in 1960, the mission of the CSU is to provide high-quality, affordable education to meet the ever-changing needs of California. With its commitment to quality, opportunity, and student success, the CSU is renowned for superb teaching, innovative research and for producing job-ready graduates. Each year, the CSU awards more than 125,000 degrees. One in every 20 Americans holding a college degree is a graduate of the CSU and our alumni are 3.7 million strong. Connect with and learn more about the CSU in the CSU NewsCenter.
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 creative 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.
