Major corporate events
Ameritech Library Services began the year as a sub-sidiary of Ameritech Corporation and ended the year as epixtech, inc., an independent company backed by two investment firms. This process was started during 1998, when Lana Porte; then President of Ameritech Library Services (and now of epixtech), and her management team undertook a comprehensive business review to identify the best course forward. Lana Porter and her team determined that a privately owned, independent company would better serve the needs of the library marketplace and AIS customers.
The two investment companies acquiring Ameritech Library Services are 21st Century Group, LLC, a minority investment firm and part of the larger Hicks, Muse, Tare and Furst Inc. of Dallas, Tens; and Green Leaf Ridge Company, LLC. based an Chicago, Illinois. The same executive team will continue to direct the new company.
As the largest company in library automation, this is a momentous event. epixtech will continue on its forward path of serving its more than 7,600 customers around the world with technological advances and solid products. epixtech is a profitable company, with more than 530 employees, offices and resellers around the world, and customers in more than 50 countries.
1999 saw strong revenue and record profits for epixtech, which is good news for staff and customers alike.
During 1999, we also acquired the assets of CPS Systems, Inc., which developed and sold the URSA (Universal Resource Sharing Application) interlibrary loan product. epixtech will continue to sell and support URSA. This acquisition consolidates epixtech's RSS (Resource Sharing System) and RPA (Remote Patron Authentication) products, which combined with WebPAC, constitute a strong E-Services suite of products.
Products
1999 was an exciting and productive year for product management, including new releases of our core library automation systems, Horizon, Dynix and NOTIS, as well as new releases of our ConnectLib products and the development of new products. Following is a list of highlights for 1999.
First Quarter
Dynix 173—Serials binding introduced
Checkpoint Firewall—epixtech becomes the first library automation vendor to become an authorized Checkpoint Firewall partner. Checkpoint is the world-wide leader in securing the Internet.
Second Quarter
TeleCirc U for Horizon—Available to Dynix customers for nearly 10 years, this self-service, postage-saving prod-uct improves patron satisfaction, improves the flow of materials, and frees staff to provide service itt other areas.
CAT for Windows 2.0--A major update to the graphical cataloging module for Dynix customers
Horizon 5.2—This is the Horizon release that the largest number of our Dynix public libraries have chosen as their upgrade path to date.
NOTIS LMS 7.0 — provides a middleware architecture that allows NOTIS systems to use the SIP protocol and interface to a host of new third party solutions.
SIP 2.0 Certification — Dynix and Horizon become the first and only SIP 2.0 certified ILS systems.
epixtech WebStore launched— allows customers to order supplies, Dell PCs, documentation and other products via the Internet with periodic special offers exclusive to WebStore customers.
Third Quarter
Dynix 180--Euro handling and full Edifact transaction set released.
TeleCirc II Available for UK, Australia & Asian customers, integrating with local telephone systems.
Resource Sharing System 3.0 — ISO/ILL compliance and affordable scalability covering the range from indi-vidual libraries to large consortia.
PAC for Windows 1.3 - provides a feature that allows the library to set permission and timeout features for a patron based on their assigned profile and specific applications used. PAC for Windows also supports broadcast searching and makes ILL requests a snap. CPS URSA Agreement announced to complement epixtech's RSS solution—The combined strengths of these two leading products insure that epixtech can provide ISO ILL compliancy (RSS) and provide extended circu-lation capabilities into disparate ILS systems (URSA).
Fourth Quarter
Horizon ProLibria for Special Libraries - Additional features such as advanced searching strategies and easier access to document management abilities make this prod-uct ideally suited fur law libraries, museums, historical societies, and other types of corporate and special libraries.
ADA Workstation 2.0 — Replacing epixtech's earlier hardware solution, we introduce a lower cost and more versatile offering to make graphical PC workstations accessible to the vision impaired.
EasyAsk (formerly English Wizard) for Horizon -Enables system and library staff and administrators to ask for statistical information about the transactions in their system in English. EasyAsk translates the questions to SQL and the results are returned as tables, charts or graphs with drill-down and cross tab support. You can even use voice control to submit your questions.
PC Reliance 2.0 - improved graphical interface that combines off-line circulation and bookmobile capability.
Remote Patron Authentication - Libraries have clam-ored for a solution that allows their patrons to access licensed online content from outside the library, via the Internet RPA provides that access while protecting the rights of the licensor.
epixtech, inc. now offers libraries twelve ConnectLib products, which allow libraries to build Upon their cur-rent infrastructure, and offer advanced services to patrons, while protecting their future investments. Our ConnectLib products are standards based and work with nor only epixtech automation systems, but other stan-dards-bated library automation systems. Our ConnectLib products include the following:
- Java WebPAC
- HTML WebPAC
- PAC for Windows
- Resource Sharing System (RSS)
- Universal Resource Sharing Application (URSA)
- TeleCirc II
- SIP2 protocol (including self checkout support)
- NetConnect
- Firewall
- Desktop Management
- PC Reliance
- Remote Patron Authentication (RPA)
Market penetration
With more than 7,600 small, medium and large libraries, we remain the number one provider of auto-mated library systems worldwide. We hold about 25% market share in public libraries in the United States and in the United Kingdom. as well as significant market share in public libraries elsewhere.
With nearly 1000 academic library customers, we have a dominant market share in this sector as well.
Our academic libraries include 55 Academic Research Libraries, including some of the world's most prestigious organizations.
We have more than 800 school libraries, which include some of North America's largest school districts.
The Toronto School District Board, the third largest school district in North America, and Hillsborough County Public School System, the twelfth largest school district in the United States, recently selected the Horizon system.
Our ProLibria Horizon product has increased our presence in special libraries. We now have 60 law libraries in addition to a substantial number of corporate, medical, government, museum and archival libraries.
Customer Success Stories for 1999
We added neatly 150 new customers during the year, and also performed over 200 substantive upgrades for Dynix and NOTIS customers. We signed over 400 contacts. Some of the highlights of this year include the following sales and implementations.
- Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library went live
- Smithsonian Institution Libraries
- New York Stare Unified Court System
- Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering Law Firm
- Santa Clara County Library
- San Jose Public Library went live
Canada
- Toronto Public Library went live
- Toronto District School Board
- TRAC Consortium
- Environment Canada
Europe
- Six new sales in Greece, including the Aristotle University of Thesssloniki
- Twelve new sales in the Middle East, including the Arabian Gulf University and the Chamber of Commerce in Riyadh
- Royal Library in Sweden (Resource Sharing System)
- State Library of Denmark
Pacific Rim
- Hong Kong Public Libraries
- Shanghai Cadre Education Information Center
- Taiyuan University of Technology
- Zhejiaog University