Intota set to transform the electronic resource management at Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi

Founded in 1988 with four colleges, the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) have grown to be the largest of the higher educational institutions in the UAE, gaining a well-respected reputation for innovative learning. Over 20,000 students attend 17 modern men's and women's campuses in the cities of Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Dubai, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah, Fujairah, and the western region cities of Madinat Zayed and Ruwais.

HCT offers a wide range of English-taught programmes in the Faculties of Business, Education & General Studies, Engineering Technology & Sciences, Foundations, Health Sciences, Arabic & Emirati Studies and Computer Information Sciences & Applied Communications. These programmes are all relevant to the UAE’s fast growing and evolving economic sectors.  All programmes and courses are designed in consultation with business and industry leaders to ensure that the skills students learn are job-relevant and meet high standards. They are constantly monitored to ensure they are at the cutting edge of technological change.

With a large collection of electronic holdings, the institutions were looking to help improve their existing workflow and ensure better control and visibility over the usage of their collections, and turned to ProQuest Intota™ after hearing about it at their Middle East Symposium, held in October 2013.

Already a subscriber to Summon and 360 Link, the new purchase of Intota will transform the library’s entire systematic outlook and approach by integrating discovery, management and assessment.
“Intota will allow us to address some of our biggest challenges, especially reducing time spent doing manual management elements," said a spokesperson for Higher Colleges of Technology. "Having an intuitive and fully integrated library management system will enhance our day to day work and also streamline the support of our entire e-resource lifecycle. This initiative is in line with HCT’s mission to provide excellence in education, so UAE National students will have the skills to enter the workforce upon graduation and make important contributions. This mission is achieved through the integration of technology, the adherence to the philosophy of Learning by Doing in HCT's academic programmes and the commitment to provide all HCT students with cutting-edge teaching and learning initiatives and practices, such as this case.”

Intota is very easy to implement, and the platform is set to transform the electronic resource management at HCT, including the management of their PDA program. This reduces manual efforts of maintaining a standard Library Management System and enables the discovery of new resources at a much quicker rate.  Designed to evolve with the library, Intota will solve the problems currently facing librarians: increasing the usage of library resources and improving the return on investment, whilst instilling user confidence and trust in the library for all its users.

HCT already uses the Summon® Discovery Service and 360 Link, which is the discovery side of the Intota platform, which enables easy, efficient and unbiased access to the library’s collections. Unlike other discovery services, Summon leverages a unique match and merge technology that combines different types of metadata and information from multiple sources, creating a single record optimised for discovery. 

This unique approach exposes resources to more users, directs researchers to full text when available, and maximizes the value and usage of a library’s collections. 360 Link is the only link resolver that provides seamless access to full text with the new IEDL linking technology, while also giving the library a persistent presence in the researcher’s workflow, promote other library resources, and help users at the point of need.