Alma Open Platform Reaches One Million API Transactions Daily
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL, June 23, 2016 – Ex Libris®, a ProQuest company, is proud to announce that its Alma library management service now routinely handles over one million API transactions daily from hundreds of institutions around the world.
Over the last two years, Ex Libris has created more than 120 Alma REST APIs in major areas of library management, such as acquisitions, user administration, fulfillment, and resource management. Library developers access the APIs through the Ex Libris Developer Network—an open environment in which library professionals and developers at libraries across the globe collaborate with each other and with Ex Libris. Aligned with the long-standing Ex Libris policy on openness, the Developer Network provides all the resources needed to develop applications and extensions for Ex Libris products. In addition, Ex Libris developers and staff at customer libraries have posted more than one hundred blog entries about sharing applications, ideas, tips, and tricks.
The API transactions that Alma processes every day provide patrons with access to services contributed by library developers as well as bringing automation to many of the daily tasks performed by library staff.
“The Alma REST APIs enable libraries to expand their services for patrons and to facilitate the work of librarians,” explained Mehmet Celik of KU Leuven LIBIS and chairman of the Joint IGeLU/ELUNA Interoperability special interest working group.
“The API initiative attests to the creativity and ingenuity of the Alma customer base and the Ex Libris commitment to support that community.”
Bar Veinstein, vice president of resource management, commented: “The huge number of API transactions served by the Alma open platform is a compelling demonstration of the platform’s value to the customer community.
“Using the APIs, customers benefit from new ways to integrate Alma with institutional systems, create innovative services, and increase the library value relative to institutional goals and objectives.”
“We’re very happy to see the inauguration of the Developer’s Day - ‘an initiative for developers, by developers, who are working with Ex Libris products’ - at the Ex Libris users’ conferences, ELUNA conference in May and also at the IGeLU conference in September. Ex Libris is committed to maintaining the openness of our solutions.”
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.