December 2, 2009

Purdue Libraries to help develop management system

Ex Libris, headquartered in Jerusalem, is a leading provider of automation solutions for academic, national and research libraries. Also working on the development project with Purdue are Boston College, Princeton University and Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.

The institutions will help Ex Libris develop the next generation of its Unified Resource Management (URM) framework. URM provides libraries with functions necessary to streamline current management tasks across print, electronic and digital resources.

"Our library system is committed to serving the increasingly complex research needs of faculty and students throughout the university and is keen to explore the potential of the URM framework to enhance our role across disciplines," said James L. Mullins, dean of Purdue Libraries.

"Beyond that, the URM framework will provide a way to collaborate with other libraries in meeting ever-growing management challenges."

Mullins said the partnership will support several aspects of the libraries' strategic plan.

"It will provide us with a platform for managing and developing robust collections," he said. "Just as important, we are exploring roles for libraries in the management of emerging forms of scholarly communication and in data curation in e-science. We look forward to seeing how the URM system will enable us to address these challenges."

"We are thrilled to welcome Purdue University Libraries to the URM development partner program," said Oren Beit-Arie, Ex Libris chief strategy officer. "Delivering novel services to researchers is of particular interest to us and will be one of the key focuses of our partnership with Purdue."

Writer: Judith Barra Austin, 765-494-2432, jbaustin@purdue.edu

Source: James Mullins, 765-494-2900, jmullins@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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