NC LIVE and ProQuest Team Up for North Carolina
More than 200 libraries statewide will have access to rich content and a modern discovery experience through the Summon® service
ANN ARBOR, Mich., May 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- North Carolina's innovative consortium NC LIVE is teaming with ProQuest and Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, to expand its offering of ProQuest® databases along with the renowned Summon® discovery service to each of its more than 200 member libraries. This unprecedented six-year agreement with NC LIVE will both expand the digital content available to North Carolinians and make it easier to discover.
Since 1998, NC LIVE has provided North Carolina libraries equitable access to a core selection of digital content and services, saving the state hundreds of millions and helping libraries support education, enhance economic development, and improve patrons' quality of life. NC LIVE and ProQuest first partnered in 2014 to provide member libraries with curated, comprehensive databases, including ProQuest Central, the world's largest aggregated collection of full-text academic content, and a vast selection of ebooks via the Academic Complete® and Public Library Complete™ collections.
This new agreement focuses on improving the patron discovery experience and expanding the digital content NC LIVE provides. Each NC LIVE member library can implement its own instance of the Summon discovery service. Summon enables patrons to find all of their library's print and electronic collections through a single search box. Ex Libris will implement and support the Summon system across North Carolina, enabling even the smallest libraries to offer a state-of-the-art user experience.
"For nineteen years NC LIVE has provided superior digital content to North Carolina's libraries. With this agreement, we are making it easier for North Carolina's patrons to find and access that content," said Rob Ross, Executive Director of NC LIVE. "A unified discovery system is a critical component in providing patrons with a contemporary online search experience, but to date it has been out of reach for the majority of our member libraries. The result has been a confusing array of search interfaces for print, electronic and other material types. Patrons accustomed to Google often grow frustrated and look elsewhere for information."
"We are excited to add so many North Carolina libraries to the Summon community," said Matti Shem Tov, Ex Libris President. "Thanks to our growing partnership with NC LIVE, we look forward to Summon enhancing the research and discovery experience for so many North Carolinians."
Additional ProQuest content is also being made available to libraries through this agreement: Students will have access to resources like the SIRS® Discoverer and eLibrary® Curriculum Edition research products, which support homework assignments; ProQuest Research Companion will address new demands for digital information literacy; and all North Carolina citizens will benefit from the Historic North Carolina Digital Newspaper Collection, 3.5 million pages of digitized content from over 1,000 county newspapers.
"This is a unique agreement. ProQuest, Ex Libris and NC LIVE each took a step back and thought strategically about how to best meet the needs of North Carolina's libraries over the next 5-10 years," said Kurt Sanford, ProQuest CEO. "Kudos to Rob Ross for his vision and leadership. This partnership will transform the search experience for patrons across the state."
About NC LIVE
NC LIVE offers electronic access to resources for all ages on topics ranging from careers, business, and investing, to health, history, and genealogy. Ebooks, audiobooks, videos, magazines, newspapers, journals, language-learning tools, and other online materials available through NC LIVE are designed for at-home use, and are available from any Internet connection via library websites, and through www.nclive.org. All North Carolinians may use NC LIVE resources through local public libraries, community colleges, or college and university libraries.
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®, Alexander Street™, Bowker®, Dialog®, Ex Libris® and SIPX® businesses – and notable research tools such as the RefWorks® citation and reference management platform, the Pivot® research development tool and the Ebook Central®, ebrary®, EBL™ and MyiLibrary® ebook platforms. The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices around the world.
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.
SOURCE ProQuest
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