Hamburg, Germany — June 20, 2018
The Austrian Library Network and its service center celebrate the migration of the network’s federated database to an Alma network zone, which connects all member libraries
Hamburg, Germany—June 20, 2018. Ex Libris®, a ProQuest® company, is pleased to announce that 13 members of the Österreichische Bibliothekenverbund (Austrian Library Network, or OBV) and the Österreichische Bibliothekenverbund und Service GmbH (Austrian Library Network and Service, or OBVSG), have successfully migrated their federated database to a network zone of the Ex Libris Alma® library services platform. This zone will serve as the cataloging system for all OBV members, including those running the Ex Libris Aleph® or Ex Libris Alephino® system, until the latter have migrated to the Alma platform. The migration is expected to be completed in 2021.
In early 2016, the OBV (under the management of the OBVSG) and Ex Libris began to migrate member libraries to the Alma platform. The first six institutions went live in August 2017 and were joined by another seven institutions in January 2018. Most of the remaining 57 members of the OBV will migrate to the Alma platform over the next three years.
The cornerstone of our implementation of Alma consists of the conversion of the OBV database to an Alma network zone… 
OBVSG Managing Director Wolfgang Hamedinger explained, “The cornerstone of our implementation of Alma consists of the conversion of the OBV database to an Alma network zone, the integration of the institutional zones of the libraries that are now on the Alma platform, and the functionality-retaining parallel operation of institutions that remain on Aleph. This is the first time that this has been done, and I think that all involved may be proud of what has been achieved as a result of their great effort.”
Ofer Mosseri, corporate vice president and general manager of Ex Libris EMEA, said, “We are delighted to celebrate this major milestone with OBV and OBVSG. The success of the project demonstrates how the Alma platform creates efficiencies, supports collaboration between libraries of all sizes and types, and facilitates integration.”
About the Austrian Library Network
The Austrian Library Network (abbreviated in German as OBV) is the largest network of scientific and administrative libraries in Austria, with 70 participants representing 90 individual institutions, including the Austrian National Library, university libraries and colleges of education, individual ministries, numerous technical colleges, and various important collections (such as the Austrian Academy of Sciences, AK Wien (Chamber of Labor, Vienna region), the MAK Austrian museum of applied arts, and the Sigmund Freud Foundation). The web-accessible database, which includes 12 million titles with 21 million copies and 0.8 million journals, is accessible at https://search.obvsg.at/OBV.
About the Head Office of the Austrian Library Network:
The Austrian Library Network and Service Ltd. (OBVSG) is the service and operational management arm of the Austrian Library Network. In addition, OBVSG is an application service provider (ASP) for the implementation and operation of local library systems (currently for about 55 institutions), local search engine portals (currently for 17 institutions), and the Visual Library service platform (providing a retrodigitization module, publication server, and more). OBVSG offers a number of proprietary software-development and system-integration products that complement the rest of its service portfolio.
About Ex Libris
Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is a leading global provider of cloud-based solutions for higher education. Offering SaaS solutions for the management and discovery of the full spectrum of library and scholarly materials, as well as mobile campus solutions driving student engagement and success, Ex Libris serves thousands of customers in 90 countries. For more information about Ex Libris, see our website, and join us on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
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