Huntsville, Alabama (April 3, 1995) - If a new product can be judged by the company it keeps, then WebCat must be Olympia. Launched by SIRSI at the 1995 ALA Winter Conference, the Virtual Library product has already gained an impressive list of advocates. Carnegie Mellon University, Rice University, College of William and Mary, and Eastern Mennonite University to name a few, recently committed to adding WebCat to their information systems. They acknowledge WebCat as a vital link to the future of information resources.
"WebCat demonstrated the most innovative use of the Internet we've seen recently," states Dan Marmion, Head of Library Systems at Oklahoma State University and Chairman of the 1995 Computers In Library Product Service (CLIPS) Committee. "It represents a pioneer approach to the information frontier, clearly standing out from competitors for the award."
SIRSI's WebCat, when used in conjuction with a library's existing Z39.50 compliant server and a popular Web browser like Mosaic(TM) and NETSCAPE(TM), turns a library's resources into a full-fledged Web catalog. WebCat enables information centers throughout the world to offer their complete catalogs and services quickly and painlessly over the World Wide Web.
"SIRSI will continue to anticipate the tools essential to the development of the information access trade," explained Jim Young, CEO of SIRSI Corporation. "WebCat makes real the virtual library and is just one of our products that has been acclaimed as an industry leader. Our goal is to forge the path that others will follow."
SIRSI's commitment to tackling industry challenges is respected by their clients. "Our charter defines our commitment to use evolving technologies that will assist in providing easy information delivery to our patrons no matter where they happen to reside," explains Kay Flowers, Assistant University Librarian for Automated Services at Rice University's Fondren Library. "WebCat's structure as an interactive, online, public access catalog on the World Wide Web offers an ingenious solution. It allows us to provide exciting, full-featured, and easy-to-use public access to users without having the headache of delivering and supporting library software on users' desktops."
WebCat is available directly from SIRSI or authorized OEMs. For more information contact Greg Hathorn, telephone: (205) 922-9825, Fax: (205) 922-9818, Internet: greg@sirsi.com
