August 4, 2015
Carleton College and St. Olaf College move to the cloud to provide students, faculty, and library staff with unified services across the two campuses
Chicago, IL — August 4, 2015. Ex Libris Group®, a world leader in the provision of library automation solutions, is pleased to announce that the Minnesota-based Bridge Consortium, consisting of St. Olaf College and Carleton College, has selected Ex Libris Alma® for resource management and Ex Libris Primo® for resource discovery and delivery. The Bridge Consortium is migrating from an Innovative Interfaces Millennium integrated library system.
Roberta Lembke, director of library and information technology services at St. Olaf College, commented: ”Our search team did an extensive review of the available options for the Bridge Consortium. Alma and Primo came out as the top choice for us for many reasons. Of course, the user experience is paramount and with Primo we have the flexibility to develop an interface that meets and exceeds user expectations. Other key factors in our decision included the unified management of both print and electronic resources, open access to our data, integrated e-resource management, the superior central index of Primo, customizable staff workflow functions, and the ability to customize search options. One aspect I am most excited about is that Alma and Primo will give us a technical foundation upon which we can further develop our consortial activities in the area of staff sharing and workload balancing. Alma and Primo made our decision easy.”
Brad Schaffner, college librarian at Carleton College, noted: ”We are looking forward to implementing Alma and Primo. After examining many systems, we found that this combination meets the information needs of our users. In addition, it gives our library staff an opportunity to further enhance our library collaboration as part of the Bridge Consortium.”
”I am happy to welcome the Bridge Consortium to the North American Alma and Primo communities,” remarked Eric Hines, president of Ex Libris North America. ”This adoption of Alma and Primo reflects the rapidly increasing implementation of our solutions not only among individual academic and research libraries but also among library consortia. The Ex Libris vision is to transform library operations and foster interaction and collaboration, at the consortium level, within universities, and through our growing Community Zone.”
About the Bridge Consortium
The Bridge Consortium, established in 2004, is composed of the libraries of Carleton and St. Olaf colleges, two premier private liberal arts colleges, located just two miles apart in historic Northfield, Minnesota. The consortium has a shared catalog and the members collaborate on collection building, technical operations, and the public presentation of resources. The success of this model has been recognized by the Mellon Foundation, which has awarded the colleges several grants from for expanding the collaboration.
About Ex Libris
Ex Libris is a leading global provider of cloud-based solutions for higher education. Offering SaaS solutions for the management and discovery of the full spectrum of library materials, as well as mobile campus solutions for driving student engagement and success, the Company serves over 5,600 customers in 90 countries. Ex Libris solutions have been deployed at 43 of the top 50 universities worldwide, and more than 40 national libraries, to create a unified platform for both the management and the discovery of library resources.
With the Ex Libris Primo® discovery and delivery solution and Alma® resource management service, libraries lower operational costs, increase efficiency, and add value to their institution through diverse new services and collaboration with other libraries and organizations. The Ex Libris campusM™ mobile platform enables universities to deliver a unified digital experience, promoting student engagement while providing mobile access to campus-wide information and services.
