FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Norcross, GA — February 11, 2010
Equinox Software, Inc, announces new hosting and support services for the Koha open source ILS to libraries. Two different packages will be available for libraries to choose from based on their needs and resources.

Koha on Demand is aimed at libraries looking for quick provisioning of new Koha databases. This service provides a modern, full-featured ILS with system administration managed by Equinox.

Koha Dedicated Hosting provides a virtual private server (VPS) with Koha installed. This service is geared toward libraries looking to outsource the provisioning, hosting, and basic maintenance of a Koha database while still having direct access to customize and develop their Koha installations as they see fit.

According to Galen Charlton, Equinox Vice-President for Data Services, “Equinox Software will, of course, continue to support and develop Evergreen. However, we are taking advantage of in-house Koha expertise to be able to diversify our service offerings. In addition, we plan to build on our expertise in resource sharing in the context of a single ILS and extend it to encompass sharing among multiple ILSs.”

There has been debate in the Koha community about certain issues regarding development and community assets. One of Equinox's advantages for Koha customers is the Equinox Promise (http://blog.esilibrary.com/2009/09/16/the-equinox-promise/). Full access to the source code will always be available to our hosted customers, to use, modify, or redistribute under the terms of the GPL. Furthermore, source code will be available in a form that makes it convenient for a customer to manage and submit contributions to the Koha project.

Brad LaJeunesse, CEO of Equinox Software, says “Equinox supports a global, unified Koha project whose assets, including global trademarks and project-websites, are held on behalf of Koha users and developers everywhere by a vendor-neutral Koha foundation or similar non-profit entity.”

About Koha
Created in 1999 by Katipo Communications for the Horowhenua Library Trust in New Zealand, Koha is the first open source Integrated Library System to be used worldwide. The software is a full-featured ILS with a dual database design (text based and RDBMS) built to be library standards compliant. Koha’s OPAC, staff, and self-checkout interfaces are all web applications. Distributed under the General Public License (GPL), libraries are free to use and install Koha themselves or to purchase support and development service.
For more information on Koha, please visit http://koha.org or http://koha-community.org.

About Equinox Software, Inc.
Founded by the original Evergreen designers and developers, Equinox Software is a growing team of skilled professionals who bring a comprehensive array of talent to continue improving Evergreen, the consortial, open source Integrated Library System (ILS). Equinox not only continues to develop Evergreen but, also consults, migrates, integrates, supports and offers hosting packages for libraries that prefer not to maintain local servers. Equinox also engages and supports a rapidly expanding Evergreen community.
For more information on Equinox Software, please visit http://www.esilibrary.com.
Press contact: Corinne Hall, corinne@esilibrary.com, 678-269-6113
Koha and Evergreen are open source software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL. Evergreen and the Evergreen logo are trademarks of the Georgia Public Library Service.

~ Data from Baker & Taylor Provides Options for EBSCO customers to Enhance the Discovery Experience for End-Users and Drive Usage of Library Collections ~

IPSWICH, Mass. — February 11, 2010 — An exciting new partnership will make rich book and multimedia data from Baker & Taylor available as part of EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS). EBSCO’s discovery solution is designed to provide a single entry point and fast access to a library’s entire collection—including local loading of the OPAC. The ability for libraries to truly make a custom discovery experience is one over-arching benefit that puts EBSCO’s discovery solution ahead of competing services. EDS, enhanced with rich Baker & Taylor content, will offer patrons a fuller user experience, bringing more exposure and usage to the collection.

Baker & Taylor provides unmatched information on books, e-books, A/V materials and more, including more than 10 million data elements representing an ever-expanding resource for libraries. The following data elements from Baker & Taylor will be available to any customers using EBSCO Discovery Service:

• Book record & entertainment record information, including:
• book jackets with full-color images
• publisher annotations
• family keys
• display of selected subject headings

Additionally, EBSCO Discovery Service conducts real-time availability checks, so that patrons have up-to-the-minute status and availability of catalog items. Customers who wish to further enhance applicable records within the EDS experience can elect to include additional data from Baker & Taylor, including:

• tables of contents information
• subject descriptors
• display of complete list of subject headings
• professionally-written summaries
• book excerpts (first chapters)
• author biographies
• awards information
• review citations
• additional bibliographies
• options for a results limiting to include Baker & Taylor data
• ability to include patron-driven wish lists/purchase options (if desired by library)

The content partnership with Baker & Taylor is the latest addition to the growing service. Baker & Taylor joins NewsBank, Readex, LexisNexis, Alexander Street Press and many others in making EBSCO Discovery Service the most comprehensive discovery solution available.

Not only does EDS provide fast, simple access to all of a library’s full text content (electronic & print), but it offers much fuller metadata than any other discovery service, and the vast set of data from Baker & Taylor adds even more value and usefulness to end users. This is a great complement to existing content available as part of EDS, which already incorporates robust metadata from hundreds of publishers and other information providers, often including author-supplied abstracts, author keywords, author affiliations, etc. and the ability to search this deep indexing along with searching the full text.

EDS is part of EBSCO’s Complete Discovery Solution combining the core discovery layer/index with the federated search capabilities of EBSCOhost Integrated Search™ and the familiar, powerful EBSCOhost® search experience. Libraries may also leverage additional EBSCO services to round out Discovery including EBSCO A-to-Z®, an institutional Web-based resource listing service, and EBSCO LinkSource®, which provides powerful item level linking.

About EBSCO Publishing
EBSCO Publishing is the world’s premier database aggregator, offering a suite of nearly 300 full-text and secondary research databases. Through a library of tens of thousands of full-text journals, magazines, books, monographs, reports and various other publication types from renowned publishers, EBSCO serves the content needs of all researchers (Academic, Medical, K-12, Public Library, Corporate, Government, etc.). The company’s product lines include proprietary databases such as Academic Search™, Business Source®, CINAHL®, DynaMed™, Literary Reference Center™, MasterFILE™, NoveList®, SocINDEX™ and SPORTDiscus™ as well as dozens of leading licensed databases such as ATLA Religion Database™, EconLit, INSPEC®, MEDLINE®, MLA International Bibliography, The Philosopher’s Index™, PsycARTICLES® and PsycINFO®. Databases are powered by EBSCOhost®, the most-used for-fee electronic resource in libraries around the world.

EBSCO is the provider of EBSCO Discovery Service™ a core collection of locally-indexed metadata creating a unified index of an institution’s resources within a single, customizable search point—detailed metadata from important content sources, OPAC loading, EBSCOhost database indexing and full text and metadata from institutional repositories and special collections (www.ebscohost.com/discovery). For more information, visit the EBSCO Publishing Web site at: www.ebscohost.com, or contact: information@ebscohost.com. EBSCO Publishing is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the United States.

About Baker & Taylor
Baker & Taylor, Inc. (www.baker-taylor.com) is a global information and entertainment services company that offers print and digital books and entertainment products along with value-added services to libraries, educational institutions and retailers. Based in Charlotte, N.C., the company has been in existence for more than 180 years, developing long-term relationships with major suppliers, including book publishers, movie studios and music labels. Baker & Taylor maintains one of the largest combined in-stock book, video and music inventories in the United States, and services the broadest customer base in the industry. Baker & Taylor is majority owned by Castle Harlan Partners IV, L.P., an institutional private equity fund managed by Castle Harlan Inc., a leading private equity investment firm.
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For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Public Relations Manager
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebscohost.com