VIRGINIA BEACH, VA – April 25, 2011 – Atlas Systems, the leading provider of time-saving solutions for libraries, has announced an agreement with the New York State Higher Education Initiative (NYSHEI) to make the Ares e-reserves management software available to NYSHEI members at an attractive consortial discount. NYSHEI represents nearly 150 public and private, academic and research libraries.
According to Dan Specht, Atlas Systems' Chief Financial Officer, the agreement with NYSHEI restores to New York institutions a group purchasing program that was lost with the recent shutdown of NYLINK. "This agreement with NYSHEI retains the previous NYLINK pricing and includes the flexibility to increase the consortial discount as NYSHEI membership grows," said Specht. "Atlas is pleased to have the opportunity to offer this discount to New York libraries, especially during these tight budget times."
NYSHEI Director Jason Kramer commented, "We are always looking for ways to extend the services we provide to our members. Leveraging the size of our group into this consortial offering with Atlas Systems for their Ares software is a great example of what we can accomplish together."
The Ares system automates library reserve services and provides robust copyright management, integration with a variety of e-Learning environments, and the ability to accept a wide variety of file formats. With Ares, faculty can manage their own reserve lists any time and anywhere through a user-friendly web interface. Students have 24/7 access to electronic reserves, with the ability to receive email or RSS feed notifications when faculty post reserve items. Reserve staff can create and edit classes, as well as post and remove reserve items.
About Atlas Systems
Atlas Systems is a software development company founded in July 1995 with the mission of developing library automation to "promote library excellence through efficiency." Atlas is best known for the ILLiad Resource Sharing Management Software, in use in over 1,100 libraries and now distributed exclusively by OCLC. Focused on bringing the benefits of automation to library processes that have not been addressed by other software services, Atlas has introduced Ares, an electronic reserves solution, and Aeon, an online request and workflow management system specifically designed for special collections libraries and archives. For more information, visit www.atlas-sys.com.
About NYSHEI
NYSHEI was founded by a joint collaboration of the State University of New York (SUNY), the City University of New York (CUNY), the NY State Education Department (SED), and a collection of leading independent colleges and universities. NYSHEI is the largest organization of its type in the nation. It is also the only statewide organization exclusively for all public and private academic and research libraries. NYSHEI strives to strengthen New York State as an innovation leader in research and business by providing statewide access to the digital information resources needed by college and university students and faculty, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. NYSHEI institutions range from the top research institutions in the world, to more than 30 two-year community colleges. For more information, visit http://www.nyshei.org/.
