As ALA Conference Approaches, Companies Tout New Products and Initiatives | ALA Annual 2011 

In the run up to the American Library Association's annual conference in New Orleans, which begins Thursday, a number of companies have announced product news. In addition to stories reported separately by LJ on EBSCO's Novelist striking a deal with Goodreads, and Tech Logic and Boopsie announcing a partnership, here is a wrap-up of some other items:

• Serials Solutions, a unit of ProQuest LLC, announced today a new web-scale management service that the company says will unite the disparate systems librarians currently use to manage resources. The new service will "provide librarians with a single, comprehensive service that will eventually eliminate the need for integrated library systems, improve efficiencies and address the challenges libraries experience today when managing their physical and electronic content and collections," the company said in a press release. It will enable "the cohesive management of a libraries' collection, including the ability to select, purchase, catalog, circulate, compare, manage, fulfill, assess and report on their content, regardless of format," the release reads. The service also integrates with discovery systems. The company will be providing more details at ALA.


• EBSCO Publishing and Elsevier reached an agreement today to provide full-text searching of all SciVerse ScienceDirect journals and ebooks for EBSCO DiscoveryService customers. This is similar to a deal announced yesterday by Serials Solutions, a unit of ProQuest LLC. ScienceDirect includes more than 10.5 million articles and chapters with nearly 500,000 added every year.


• The North Dakota State Library announced today that Tutor.com, an online homework and tutoring company, is now available to every library cardholder in North Dakota. Hulen E. Bivins, the state librarian, made the announcement at a press conference today in Bismarck along with Wayne G. Sanstead, the state superintendent of schools, according to a press release from Tutor.com. The North Dakota State Library is funding the program, called Tutor ND, with the assistance of federal funds provided by the Institute of Museums and Library Services.


• LYRASIS Technology Services (LTS) announced today that it has added the LYRASIS Discovery Layer Service (DLS) to its offerings. DLS provides libraries with a single search box for patrons to access print and electronic information resources. DLS will leverage technology from Index Data, a software development company specializing in networked information retrieval and management based on open standards, to retrieve and rank results from journals and database providers. There is the option to integrate with interlibrary loan and document delivery services from Relais International, based in Ottawa. The new service is being offered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription, which can be configured for consortia and single-site libraries.


• Ex Libris Group, a provider of library automation services, announced today that an international group of library experts will provide guidance to Ex Libris on policies, standards, and procedures that should be used in the governance and stewardship of metadata records during the formation of the Alma Community Zone, a catalog of bibliographic records shared by all libraries that are using the Alma library management service. Libraries are encouraged to contribute records to this open environment, without limiting the records' terms of use, according to the announcement. Each library also has a catalog to store records over which it wants to exercise local stewardship.


• EnvisionWare, a self-service product supplier, plans to demonstrate a "new, integrated RFID Reader and UniDirectional Pad" at ALA, according to a company announcement. "EnvisionWare 1-Pad" is a more powerful RFID reader, the company said, and eliminates cables and ferrite shields. The company will also be showing at the convention a new RFID L-Tag, a new generation of its RFID Software Suite, and a new version of its EnvisionWare eCommerce Services, among other items.
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