~ Grants Totaling $100,000 Provided to Academic Libraries Creating Innovative Technology Solutions ~

IPSWICH, Mass. — June 23, 2017 — EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) today announced initial winners of its inaugural EBSCO FOLIO Innovation Challenge. The grant program is awarding a total of $100,000 in grants to libraries to develop innovative technology solutions that address the challenges academic libraries face.

Winning proposals came from Villanova University, which aims to develop the integration of VuFind with FOLIO, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which looks to integrate their hardware circulation module with FOLIO.

EBSCO Information Services Director of SaaS Innovation, Andrew Nagy, says the winning proposals were a perfect fit for the Innovation Challenge. “The EBSCO FOLIO Innovation Challenge was created to encourage our community of libraries and service providers to develop new technologies, with the goal of improving their workflow and services.”

Director of Library Technology at Villanova University, Demian Katz, says VuFind was designed with interoperability in mind. “One of the goals of the VuFind project has been to give libraries more choice and more control over their users’ search experience by providing a seamless and configurable interface on top of many different systems. For users interested in building a fully open library system, FOLIO promises to be an exciting new option and with EBSCO’s support, we will be able to ensure that VuFind supports all of its key functionality as it develops.”

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Acting Dean of Libraries and Berthold Family Professor in Information Access and Discovery Bill Mischo says the university is already mapping out its plan for FOLIO. “The FOLIO platform is built on an exciting mix of new yet proven technologies that stand to have a real impact on the library software ecosystem. The collaborative work we are engaging in, led by Jim Hahn, a Library faculty member, will help advance the mission of the FOLIO project since it is our hope that library platforms would become more open, extensible, and responsive to contemporary user needs. We are looking forward to working with EBSCO and the FOLIO groups on enhancing key library services and tools.”

For more information on the EBSCO FOLIO Innovation Challenge, visit our FAQs.

About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the leading discovery service provider for libraries worldwide with more than 11,000 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 1,000,000 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.
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For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Vice President of Communications
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebsco.com