~ Integrating A-Z Listing Service and Link Resolver as Part of EDS Provides Enhanced Usability Along with Greater Efficiencies In Cost and Resource Management ~

Ipswich, MA & Birmingham, AL — January 20, 2011 — EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) is set to benefit from the formal merging of EBSCO A-to-Z® and LinkSource® into EBSCO’s overall discovery solution. The two resources, which are relied upon by thousands of universities and other institutions around the globe, will become an integrated part of EBSCO Discovery Service. The EDS technology and service teams will work to provide additional value for EDS customers via a seamless integration of the services with EBSCO Discovery Service.

While high-end indexing, search value and user experience are most often the driving forces for discovery evaluation and adoption, tight integration of resource browsing within the EDS discovery experience will bring unparalleled functionality to the industry. According to, EBSCO Publishing’s Executive Vice President and CIO, Michael Gorrell, “Our vision is to provide the most complete and highest quality discovery experience for our users. Tightly integrating the A-to-Z browse functionality from within EDS represents a major step in this direction.”

While EDS is currently able to leverage the EBSCO A-to-Z knowledgebase to facilitate quality linking and limiting for a customer’s holdings, regardless of which resource listing product a customer subscribes to, this change will allow EDS customers to gain unique functionality in EDS. Complete browsing of a library’s e-resources will be possible within the same experience in which users conduct their keyword discovery searches. EBSCO A-to-Z and EDS customers will also reap the benefits of a unified administrative tool (under EBSCOadmin™) that will allow for streamlined management process for all products.

“By integrating these products which are the primary means of access to a library’s resources, we are able to create solutions that are very high up on the value/functionality curve,” said Gorrell. “This integration will be a big win for customers.”

EDS User Group Meeting
EBSCO plans to begin the process for integrating the services over the coming months, and will be conducting focus groups and engaging customers to ensure the greatest possible value upon initial integration. The company is planning the facilitation of a formal customer-driven EDS User Group Meeting that is currently planned to take place in summer of 2012. Additional detail on the EDS User Group Meeting is forthcoming.

About EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS)
EBSCO Discovery Service creates a unified, customized index of an institution’s information resources, and an easy, yet powerful means of accessing all of that content from a single search box-searching made even more powerful because of the quality of metadata and depth and breadth of coverage.

The Base Index for EBSCO Discovery Service forms the foundation upon which each EDS subscribing library builds out its custom collection. Beginning with the Base Index, each institution extends the reach of EDS by adding appropriate resources including its catalog, institutional repositories, EBSCOhost and other databases, and additional content sources to which it subscribes. It is this combination that allows a single, comprehensive, custom solution for discovering the value of any library’s collection.

The EDS Base Index is comprised of metadata from the world’s foremost information providers. At present, the EDS Base Index represents content from approximately 20,000 providers in addition to metadata from another 70,000 book publishers. Although constantly growing, today the EDS Base Index provides metadata for nearly 64,000 magazines & journals, approximately 825,000 CDs & DVDs, nearly six million books, more than 320 million newspaper articles, more than 400,000 conference proceedings and hundreds of thousands of additional information sources from various source-types.

About EBSCO
EBSCO encompasses both EBSCO Publishing and EBSCO Information Services. In addition to EBSCO Discovery Service, EBSCO Publishing is the producer of EBSCOhost®, the world’s premier for-fee online research service, including full-text databases, subject indexes, point-of-care medical reference, historical digital archives, and eBooks. The company provides more than 350 databases and nearly 300,000 eBooks. Through a library of tens of thousands of full-text journals and magazines from renowned publishers, EBSCO serves the content needs of all researchers (Academic, Medical, K-12, Public Library, Corporate, Government, etc.).

EBSCO Information Services, the provider of EBSCONET®, is the world’s leading information agent providing consultative services and cutting-edge technology for managing and accessing quality content, including e-journals, e-packages, eBooks, and more. Now more than ever libraries and research organizations are looking for new ways to manage their collections more efficiently. EBSCO has developed the most comprehensive “e” discovery and management solutions, offering unparalleled integration to help librarians save time and money while empowering their users.

EBSCO Publishing and EBSCO Information Services are divisions of EBSCO Industries Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the United States.

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For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Public Relations Director
EBSCO Publishing
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebscohost.com