DUBLIN, Ohio, June 23, 2016—July 1, 2016 will mark the 5th anniversary of the general release of OCLC WorldShare Management Services, the first-ever cloud-based cooperative library management system. More than 500 libraries spanning 6 continents—Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America—have selected WorldShare Management Services as their library management system since its introduction.

WorldShare Management Services (WMS) is a complete, cloud-based library management system that offers all the applications needed to manage a library, including Acquisitions, Circulation, Metadata, Resource Sharing, License Management and a single-search Discovery interface for library users. WMS also includes a range of Reports that help libraries understand their activities and track key metrics over time.

As part of the OCLC library cooperative, WMS libraries work together through the WorldShare environment. Librarians are able to connect with one another, exchange best practices, share experience and expertise, and contribute ideas in a web-based OCLC Community Center, which is available 24/7. Librarians can also connect via in-person and virtual WMS Community Meetings.

“OCLC and member libraries worked together to build WorldShare Management Services, a cooperative effort to create the next-generation library services platform,” said Skip Prichard, OCLC President and CEO. “It’s not that often that we can affect real change in library automation systems, but WMS was the catalyst for real change. The unprecedented growth and adoption of WMS is due to the hard work and collaborative engagement of OCLC’s dedicated membership.”

"WMS is truly a library system for the 21st century,” said Lynne Jacobsen, Associate University Librarian for Information Resources, Collections and Scholarly Communication at Pepperdine University, which was among the earliest adopters of WMS. “WMS has enabled us to efficiently acquire, manage and provide access to electronic resources which now outnumber our print resources. We're able to effectively manage licenses that affect interlibrary loan. We're able to conduct sophisticated collection analysis, compare with peer institutions, and compile statistics for comprehensive library assessment.”

“We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our participation in the development of WMS,” said Jacobsen.
In the United States and Canada, more than 80 libraries of all types have joined the WMS community in the last year, including 4-year colleges such as Babson College, community colleges such as Weatherford College, and specialized academic institutions such as the Medical University of South Carolina.

Also in the United States, groups such as the West Virginia University Libraries, Potomac State College, WVU Institute of Technology, West Virginia Northern Community College and West Liberty University have joined the WMS community.

In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, noteworthy additions to the WMS community include several firsts: the Münster University of Applied Science was the first academic institution in Germany to join the WMS community; the College of Europe was the first institution in Belgium, the University of KwaZulu-Natal was the first in South Africa, and the American University of Sharjah in United Arab Emirates was the first in the Middle East.

In Australia and New Zealand, this past year Scion became the first institution in New Zealand to join the WMS community. Most recently, The Northern Territory Library, a major reference and research institution in Australia, selected WMS for more than 50 libraries in the region.

Libraries worldwide are using WMS to share bibliographic records, publisher and knowledge base data, vendor records, serials patterns and more. With WorldCat at its foundation, WMS enables libraries to draw on the collaborative data and work of libraries worldwide for more efficient workflows. WMS also provides libraries with the unique opportunity to share innovation, applications, infrastructure, vision and success in serving their users.

More about WorldShare Management Services is on the OCLC website.

~ Integration with the Plum Print will Help
Users Improve Their Research and Better Evaluate Resources ~

IPSWICH, Mass. — June 23, 2016 — The overall research experience for users of EBSCO Discovery Service™ and EBSCOhost® databases is improving with the addition of altmetrics data from Plum™ Analytics, an EBSCO company. By integrating the Plum Print widget into these platforms, users will have a view of modern metrics that allows them to uncover new research insights.

EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) and EBSCOhost customers will be able to view the Plum Print to visualize the research impact of all items in the results list, including: articles, books chapters, e-books, and institutional repository materials. Powered by the PlumX Suite, the Plum Print visually changes depending on the altmetrics found in each of the five categories: Usage, Captures, Mentions, Social Media and citations, providing added research insight at the artifact level.

The Plum Print will appear in the EDS and EBSCOhost search results, giving researchers a highly visual way of evaluating resources, and the ability to quickly focus on information of interest to them. Hovering over the Plum Print highlights a brief visual breakdown of the altmetrics, and clicking on it brings users to the Plum Suite platform for more in-depth information.

EBSCO Vice President of SaaS Strategy, Tamir Borensztajn says the Plum Print will improve the research experience of EBSCO Discovery Service and EBSCOhost users. “Helping our users find pertinent content they’re searching for is a key objective across our business. The integration of the Plum Print into EBSCO Discovery Service and EBSCOhost gives users additional means to evaluate search results, creating a more user-focused research experience.”

EBSCO Senior Vice President of Business Development and Strategy Mark Herrick says the integration is one way EBSCO is using its technological assets to improve the research experience. “As EBSCO moves forward as a technical innovator for libraries and their institutions, we think altmetrics is an important component for them. That was our initial motivation in January 2014 when we acquired Plum Analytics. Since that time we’ve done a lot of careful work, including a trial roll-out of the Plum Print in our CINAHL® database, building a scalable infrastructure, and gathering metrics for a very large number of articles and other research artifacts to give users of EDS and other databases an optimal experience.”

Plum Analytics Co-Founder and President, Andrea Michalek said user testing conducted during the Plum Print integration into CINAHL databases proved overwhelmingly positive. “Most users noticed the Plum Print right away and understood how it could help them with their research. Those findings gave us the confidence to make the feature available to a much wider audience.”

About Plum™ Analytics
Plum Analytics was founded in 2012 to bring modern ways of measuring research impact to individuals and organizations that use, fund, support, perform, publish or analyze research. Plum Analytics provides contemporary information about research impact and gathers metrics (often called altmetrics) about research from more than 30 sources (including PLOS, PubMed and YouTube) and categorizes them into Usage, Captures, Mentions, Social Media and Citations. The PlumX Suite is comprised of five products that ensure that information on research output is available to those that fund, perform, support or publish research based on the unique needs of each group. For more information, visit www.plumanalytics.com.

About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the leading discovery service provider for libraries worldwide with more than 10,000 discovery customers in over 100 countries. EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) provides each institution with a comprehensive, single search box for its entire collection, offering unparalleled relevance ranking quality and extensive customization. EBSCO is also the preeminent provider of online research content for libraries, including hundreds of research databases, historical archives, point-of-care medical reference, and corporate learning tools serving millions of end users at tens of thousands of institutions. EBSCO is the leading provider of electronic journals & books for libraries, with subscription management for more than 360,000 serials, including more than 57,000 e-journals, as well as online access to more than 800,000 e-books. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: www.ebsco.com. EBSCO Information Services is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a family owned company since 1944.

###

For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Vice President of Communications
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebsco.com

~ Each Library Receives $10,000 from the H.W. Wilson Foundation ~

IPSWICH, Mass. — May 31, 2016 — Eight libraries are being recognized for their strategic communications efforts with the 2016 John Cotton Dana Awards (JCD) for outstanding library public relations. The award is managed by the Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA) division of the American Library Association (ALA), and consists of $10,000 grants for each winner from the H.W. Wilson Foundation.

The winning campaigns feature a wide variety of strategies including: capturing the authentic stories of a library’s patrons on video in order to teach people why we need libraries; creating a high-impact summer learning program; partnering with a large business to increase the number of library cardholders to almost a million; efforts to educate people on a proposition that could result in drastic cuts in library services; zombie-themed outreach for donations of old power cords and connecting cables to resurrect data on outdated digital devices; a program designed to increase the number of kids ready for kindergarten; a celebration of all things Harry Potter that brought the entire community together; and the launch of an inspiration lab to inspire the community to create.

The winning libraries are:

The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library for a Library of Possibilities
Chicago Public Library Summer Learning Challenge 2015 Explore and Soar
Houston Public Library MyLink Card Campaign
New Orleans Public Library Millage Campaign, a Library at a Crossroads
Northwestern Libraries for UnDead Tech
The San Diego County Library for 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten
The Scholes Library at Alfred University for Harry Potter’s World
Vancouver Public Library Inspiration Lab Launch Campaign

The award is named after John Cotton Dana, the father of the modern library who is credited with helping transition libraries from reading rooms to community centers. JCD submissions include strategic library communications campaigns from libraries of all types and sizes. In recognition of the achievement, JCD award winners receive a cash development award from the H.W. Wilson Foundation. The John Cotton Dana Awards are presented during an awards ceremony hosted by EBSCO Information Services held during the American Library Association annual conference.

About the John Cotton Dana Award
The John Cotton Dana Award was inaugurated at the 1946 annual conference of the American Library Association. It was named after John Cotton Dana (1856-1929), a librarian called the father of the modern library.

About the H.W. Wilson Foundation
The H.W. Wilson Foundation was established in 1952 by Halsey W. Wilson, founder of The H.W. Wilson Company. Over the years the foundation has provided grants to libraries and library related causes. Since 1957 the foundation has supported scholarship grants to all library schools accredited by the American Library Association in the United States and Canada. Visit the foundation at thwwf.org.

About the Library Leadership and Management Association
The Library Leadership and Management Association (www.ala.org/llama) advances outstanding leadership and management practices in library and information services by encouraging and nurturing individual excellence in current and aspiring library leaders. LLAMA is a division of the American Library Association.

About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the leading discovery service provider for libraries worldwide with more than 10,000 discovery customers in over 100 countries. EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) provides each institution with a comprehensive, single search box for its entire collection, offering unparalleled relevance ranking quality and extensive customization. EBSCO is also the preeminent provider of online research content for libraries, including hundreds of research databases, historical archives, point-of-care medical reference, and corporate learning tools serving millions of end users at tens of thousands of institutions. EBSCO is the leading provider of electronic journals & books for libraries, with subscription management for more than 360,000 serials, including more than 57,000 e-journals, as well as online access to more than 800,000 e-books. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: www.ebsco.com. EBSCO Information Services is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a family owned company since 1944.

LibLime, a division of PTFS, to exhibit at ALA 2016 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, FL.

North Bethesda, MD, June 8, 2016 - LibLime, a division of PTFS, will be exhibiting at the ALA 2016 Conference in Orlando, FL. from June 24th through June 27th. All conference attendees are encouraged to visit LibLime at booth # 2362 to see the latest library-sponsored functional additions to Bibliovation 3.0.

LibLime will be presenting Bibliovation 3.0, their latest Library Services Platform (LSP) offering. Bibliovation provides traditional bibliographic management services along with digital content management services, so that libraries can maintain print and digital collections in a single system. Bibliovation includes:

• External links to third party authentication programs
• EDI-compliant acquisitions
• Asynchronous reporting module
• Support for RDA and GeoMARC
• Digital object import with full-text search & retrieval
• An expanded messaging package for patron Discovery Layer interaction covering purchase requests, ILL requests, call slip requests, general library messages, digital object ingest, and holds
• Full support for multiple security classification schema between metadata and digital objects
• Discovery Layer visual search using ESRI and Google Maps interfaces

To find out more about Bibliovation 3.0, and LibLime’s support for libraries that want to be part of an LSP’s open development, email BibliovationInfo@liblime.com to request a presentation, or visit LibLime at Booth #2362 at the ALA Exhibits at the Orange County Convention Center.

More information about the upcoming ALA Conference can be found at http://2016.alaannual.org/general-exhibits-info

About LibLime - PTFS
LibLime, a division of PTFS, is the global leader in providing support for open development Library Service Platforms (LSP). Rather than sell software licenses for static, hard-to-customize software products, LibLime educates libraries about the benefits of open development, enabling them to make choices about how best to provide their communities and staff with better technology services. LibLime then facilitates deployment of the LSP in libraries by providing outstanding consulting, development, implementation, and support/hosting services. PTFS is also the developer of the world’s leading content management software, Knowvation, and specializes in meeting library personnel staffing requirements, digitization and metadata keying services. For more information, see http://liblime.com or http://ptfs.com.

Contact:

Kat Kamp
Backstage Library Works
Phone: 801.356.1852 | Fax: 801.356.8220
news@bslw.com | www.bslw.com

PROVO, Utah, June 16, 2016 – On Sunday, June 26th, Backstage Library Works (www.bslw.com)will co-present at the ALA Annual Conference Exhibits Round Table (ERT) program: State of the Union for Subject Based Classification in Public Libraries. The discussion will be held in the Orange County Convention Center, room W300 and will run from 8:30 – 10:00 a.m.

Public libraries considering a change from the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system to a subject-based system are encouraged to attend the presentation. The panel will review the pros and cons of subject-based systems and discuss what it takes to move from DDC to a subject-based arrangement. Attendees will gain insight into the tools needed to make the transition.

Panelists include:
◾Sandy Wee Library Services Manager, Access Services
San Mateo County Libraries, California

◾Jeremy Reeder, Deputy Director
Maricopa County Library District, Arizona

◾Logan Macdonald, Director of Products & Technology
Anythink Libraries, Colorado

◾John Reese, Vice President of On-Site Services
Backstage Library Works, Utah

The program is included with a full conference registration. To learn more, visit:

https://www.eventscribe.com/2016/ala-annual/fsPopup.aspMode=presInfo&Pre...

Backstage is also exhibiting at the ALA Conference in booth 2069. The exhibit hall is located in the West Building of the Orange County Convention Center.

About Backstage Library Works

Backstage’s objective is to provide the most technologically advanced and efficient means for delivering professional library services. With over 25 years of experience, the company is known for its expertise in handling complex and unique projects. Backstage specializes in solutions for cataloging, authority control, digitization, preservation microfilm, and on-site needs. In providing services to more than a thousand libraries, large and small, public and private, and in locations across the globe, Backstage has cultivated an understanding of libraries, their mission, their operations, and the challenges they face. Backstage offices are located in Provo, Utah, and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

###