Library Technology Guides

Days before ALA's late-June Annual Conference and Exposition in headquarter-city Chicago, two major ILS players, Sirsi and Dynix, announced the companies’ pending merger. The agreement the two privately owned companies signed initiates the colossal effort the organizations will undertake in order to emerge as the largest library automation company in the industry: SirsiDynix. The combined company will employ more than 725 and will have potential annual revenues of more than $125 million.

Oxford University, one of the oldest and largest libraries in the world, has selected the Virtua integrated library system to replace its 1997-installed Geac Advance system. At the point of the initial announcement, a final contract had not yet been signed.

The Library Corp. (TLC) received a major boost with its recent award of a $13.8 million, five-year contract to provide the Chicago Public Library (CPL) with its nextgeneration library automation system.

Reflecting its continued ambitious product development designed to meet the needs of academic libraries, Innovative Interfaces recently made a series of announcements about its new products and services. These products reflect the company’s strategy of creating components that satisfy each aspect of functionality as demand emerges, preempting the need for its customer libraries to acquire these technologies from third-party vendors or from competitors.

Jane Burke, a well-known name in the library automation industry, has been appointed vice president of ProQuest Information and Learning and will serve as the general manager of Serials Solutions, a company it acquired in July 2004. In her role as VP, Burke will participate in strategy at ProQuest.