St. Louis, Missouri -- April 29, 1996: Data Research Associates (DRA), today announced that the Bibliocentre and nine Ontario community college learning resource centres (the BiblioNet Consortium) have selected DRA as their new library-automation vendor.
The consortium is currently installing upgraded DRA Classic Acquisition, Cataloging, ReportWriter and other modules for use at the Bibliocentre, a central service facility for all 25 of Ontario's community college learning resource centres (LRCs, or libraries). All provincial colleges thus will benefit from improved service available from the Bibliocentre, and all will have varying degrees of access to the acquisition and cataloging modules, to refer to their own data and continue to place on-line orders. In addition, nine BiblioNet consortium member colleges also will take advantage of DRA's Circulation, PAC, Serials and MEDIANET modules within their own LRCs.
BiblioNet also is making plans to migrate to DRA's new suite of products, including DRA's Z39.50 client and server, DRA Find, DRA Web and the resource-sharing capabilities of DRA Net. Annetta Protain, Director of Bibliocentre, says, "We are looking forward to the client/server flexibility, the ability to interface with other networks in an easy manner."
Saving members money, space, staffing and computing resources, the Bibliocentre was founded in 1968 and is administered by Centennial College. It has developed a union database of more than two million items, and has provided a variety of services via its customized DOBIS/LIBIS system.
In 1995, the Bibliocentre spearheaded the formation of the BiblioNet consortium to acquire a new library system. BiblioNet's ten members include the Bibliocentre (lead institution) plus nine English- and French-speaking Ontario community colleges: Algonquin, Boréal, Centennial, George Brown, Georgian, Humber, La Cité, Seneca and Sheridan. In addition, Bibliocentre user Fanshawe College has already been an independent DRA customer since 1993.
"DRA is going in the same direction we are all going," says Cathy Zuraw, Manager of Library Services at Sheridan College. "Providing a seamless gateway to the information sources that are out there, in a such a way that our students can get to resources without knowing there's a complicated procedure in place to support them -- that's what we need. DRA is a leader in this field."
Carolyn Lam, Manager of Seneca College's Satellite LRCs, adds, "We chose the DRA system because it has all the features we require in an integrated library system, thus enabling us to fully take advantage of the consortium arrangement with Bibliocentre. As a company, DRA has demonstrated that software development is a priority and that it is quickly moving to the next generation of library automation products. Finally, DRA has a good reputation in the library world and has proven that the customer is important."
Protain says, "All of our LRCs are part of broader college information technology environments. And they're all independent institutions, with different environments at each location. Yet we're operating as a consortium, and must work with other systems such as accounting and registration. A true, client/server environment and other tools available from DRA will make it easier."
DRA, headquartered in St. Louis, is a leading systems integrator for libraries and other information providers, offering its own proprietary information services software; third-party software and hardware; Internet, World Wide Web and other networking services; and other related support services. Its World Wide Web page is located at http://www.dra.com.
