University of Mary Washington Goes Live with Ex Libris Alma and Primo
CHICAGO, IL, September 7, 2016 – Ex Libris® Group, a world leader in the provision of library automation solutions, is pleased to announce that the University of Mary Washington (UMW) has gone live with the Ex Libris Alma® library management service and Primo® discovery and delivery solution.
In 2015, after using various VTLS library solutions, including Virtua, for more than 30 years, the University of Mary Washington Libraries embarked on a process to evaluate next-generation solutions. The Libraries’ main goal was to implement a robust, cloud-based system that would include workflows for handling the various material types, both print and electronic, and thus enable the UMW Libraries to optimally manage their collections and meet users’ expectations of a first-class library experience.
UMW libraries had opted to be ProQuest Intota development partners, and with the acquisition of Ex Libris by ProQuest, the UMW libraries decided that the best way forward would be to adopt both Alma and Primo. The implementation took place during the spring of 2016, and UMW is now live with the two solutions. UMW is the first of the Intota development partners to implement the Alma service for unified resource management.
“With cloud-based solutions such as Alma and Primo, libraries can concentrate on more mission-critical tasks, especially in today’s constantly changing user-experience landscape and with the growing importance of electronic resource management,” commented University Librarian Rosemary Arneson. “Through conversations with ProQuest and Ex Libris, we felt that moving to Alma and Primo would enable us to shift our focus appropriately, and to do so in a very short period of time.”
Eric Hines, president of Ex Libris North America, noted that “The University of Mary Washington Libraries are leading the way for other institutions that were Intota development partners. UMW is now realizing the benefits of the Ex Libris-ProQuest acquisition in our commitment to not only support our customer libraries but also contribute to their success by pursuing innovation and implementing features suggested by the Intota community.”
About The University of Mary Washington
Founded in Virginia in 1908, the University of Mary Washington has a rich history of traditions and academic excellence, evolving from the State Normal and Industrial School for Women into one of the nation’s premier, selective public liberal arts and sciences universities today. From 1944 to 1972, UMW functioned as the women’s college of the University of Virginia, after which the school was reorganized as an independent college. In 2004, it was renamed the University of Mary Washington, in honor of the mother of George Washington. Today UMW has three colleges—Arts and Sciences, Business, and Education—and offers its approximately 4,000 undergraduates and several hundred graduate students more than 60 majors and programs of study.
About Ex Libris
Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, 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 and scholarly materials, as well as mobile campus solutions driving student engagement and success, Ex Libris serves thousands of customers in 90 countries. For more information about Ex Libris, see our website, and join us on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
About ProQuest (http://www.proquest.com)
ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. Key to serious research, the company’s products are a gateway to the world’s knowledge including dissertations, governmental and cultural archives, news, historical collections and ebooks. ProQuest technologies serve users across the critical points in research, helping them discover, access, share, create and manage information.
The company’s cloud-based technologies offer flexible solutions for librarians, students and researchers through the ProQuest®, Bowker®, Coutts® information services, Dialog®, ebrary®, EBL™, and SIPX® businesses – and notable research tools such as the Summon® discovery service, the RefWorks® citation and reference management platform, MyiLibrary® ebook platform, the Pivot® research development tool and Intota™. The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices around the world.