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Ex Libris Group Announces Primo Version 3.0

Ex Libris Group (www.exlibrisgroup.com) announced the general release of version 3.0 of the Primo discovery and delivery solution. The major new functionality in version 3.0 is the result of continued collaboration with the expanding international Primo community, consisting of more than 270 sites that span 29 countries on six continents.

Bringing together a simplified, modernized user interface, enhanced search and display options, the integration of OPAC functionality, and support for seamless searching in the Primo Central index of scholarly materials, Primo 3.0 now enables users to interact fully with the library through a single interface in a straightforward and engaging manner.

Primo Central covers hundreds of millions of electronic resources harvested from primary and secondary publishers and aggregators. Primo Central is currently undergoing beta testing by 10 Primo libraries together with a number of MetaLib libraries, and will be available to all Primo and MetaLib institutions later this year. Primo 3.0 is designed to accommodate Primo Central's blend of local and global results.

Highlights of this version include the following:

• A redesigned, simplified user interface: On the result list page, users can now see all information related to an item-the entire record, with all the details; availability information; a preview (for online items); tags, ratings, and reviews; detailed location information; recommendations based on scholarly usage patterns; etc.
• Integration with Primo Central: Primo provides seamless access to Primo Central, a mega-aggregate of scholarly materials hosted by Ex Libris in a cloud computing environment. Primo displays a single relevance-ranked list of local and global materials, with the visibility of local collections controlled by the institution.
• Integration of OPAC functionality: Library services are now available through the Primo main window-for example, users can renew loans; see hold requests, fees, and fines; and update their contact information. This complete integration with the library management system is carried out through the use of APIs that comply with the Digital Library Federation recommendations for discovery interfaces (DLF ILS-DI), which are implemented in the Aleph and Voyager integrated library systems. An intermediary Primo-like screen is available for integration with library systems that do not provide such APIs.
• Recommendations: The integration of two recommender systems-the Ex Libris bX article recommender service and the University of Karlsruhe BibTip recommender for library catalogs-enables Primo to display the most relevant recommendations generated on the basis of researchers' usage of scholarly materials.
• Enhanced search and display options: The Primo search engine has been enhanced with a "starts with" (left-anchor) search option and new sorting features, including out-of-the-box ascending and descending sort order and author and title sorting; locally defined fields for sorting; and a customizable sorting order for characters. Other enhancements offer libraries further control over relevance ranking and the grouping (FRBRizing) of search results.
• iPhone interface: The out-of-the box CSS-based iPhone interface, which can be easily customized by library staff, provides an additional library-branded access point to collections.
• Multilingual thesauri: In a multilingual environment, controlled terms in the full display and in facets automatically correspond to the interface language.
• Back-office enhancements: Enhancements to the Primo back office in version 3.0 include an increased number of function-specific administrative roles; the availability of institution-based filtering of the back-office operations, a feature that facilitates efficient and secure access for consortium administrators; and a webpage harvesting capability.

Source: Ex Libris Group