POMONA, Calif., August 14, 1995 -- Auto-Graphics, Inc., a leading supplier of information and database resource systems, today announced an agreement with EBSCO Publishing, a leading commercial database provider. Under the terms of the agreement, EBSCO, using Auto-Graphics' new Impact/ONLINE ACCESS product, will supply library consortia with access to their information databases via the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW).
EBSCO offers remote access to a variety of periodical databases, covering more than 12,000 unique titles. Additionally, EBSCO offers databases with titles specially designed for specific venues such as academic, corporate, public and school libraries.
"Auto-Graphics is the first library union catalog and interlibrary loan provider to offer commercial database access through the Internet and World Wide Web," said William Kliss, vice president of sales and marketing, Auto-Graphics. "We are dedicated to providing libraries with the tools necessary to allow patrons access to a wide array of information using the convenience of online services."
Impact/ONLINE ACCESS Provides Delivery Vehicle For Commercial Databases
Impact/ONLINE ACCESS allows library consortia to license commercial databases for all of their member libraries. ACCESS is engineered to providEcommercial database providers, like EBSCO, with built in security facilities. This ensures that only the licensed number of authorized users will be able to search and retrieve information simultaneously from the commercial database.
"We are delighted to have the opportunity to offer EBSCO's comprehensive indexing and full text database through Auto-Graphics," said Tim Collins, EBSCO's vice president and general manager. "EBSCO strives to offer products and solutions to meet the needs of libraries and we feel our partnership with Auto-Graphics continues the tradition."
ACCESS allows libraries to spread the cost of the database service among the other libraries in their group, significantly lowering the cost to each individual library. Moreover, by allowing the use of licensed commercial databases by more patrons and at the same time, database providers benefit from increased revenues.
"With Impact/ONLINE ACCESS, we've been able to design a product that provides an incentive to database providers to make their product widely available while making it extremely cost-effective for libraries," said Kliss.
Users of Impact/ONLINE will use the same familiar Public Access Catalog (PAC) interface for ACCESS. PAC and ACCESS together allow the patron to perform the same search on different databases without re-keying the search criteria.
ACCESS allows libraries and consortia to take advantage of the growth of the Internet and WWW by giving them a resource sharing tool that provides access to these online venues. ACCESS makes the commercial databases available online to users at any of the libraries within the consortium.
As with all Auto-Graphics' products, ACCESS builds in ease-of-use features designed to make patrons self-sufficient when accessing information. This includes user-friendly interfaces and context sensitive help messages.
ACCESS is an additional software module that extends the capabilities of Auto-Graphics' popular Impact/ONLINE library consortium resource sharing system. With ACCESS, all patron access functions of Impact/ONLINE are made available through any standard web browser including dictionary term search, key word search and patron initiation of ILL requests.
Company Information
Founded in 1950, Auto-Graphics, Inc. (OTC:AUGR) has capitalized on new technology as it becomes available, providing information publishing and database resource sharing systems to the publishing and library communities. Made up of two divisions, the Library Services Division and the Publishing Services Division, Auto-Graphics offers a wide range of products and services that are both cost-effective and innovative.
The Library Services Division has been committed to providing libraries and their patrons with user-friendly resource tools for 25 years. Always on the leading edge of library automation, Auto-Graphics began by developing printed book catalogs of library inventory. As technology advanced, Auto-Graphics developed new products ranging from fiche and film catalogs to, in recent years, CD-ROM catalogs. Today, Auto-Graphics is providing the latest in information access technology to libraries throughout the nation by offering access to online catalogs and databases. Over one million people per day use Auto-Graphics' software to access library information.
