INWOOD, WV, April 25, 2001 The Library Corporation (TLC) -- a recognized innovator in library automation technology -- and its recently acquired partner company, CARL Corporation, today jointly announced the release of CARLweb 3.6, a robust new version of the public access catalog (PAC) portion of CARL's IMDS automation system.
The new enhancements significantly strengthen CARL's comprehensive automation solution-- Information Management & Delivery System (IMDS). Developed by CARL and first introduced in 1997, IMDS is comprised of a suite of integrated products that include powerful and intuitive public access interfaces and graphical modules for library staff functions. These include: Circulation, Acquisitions, Serials, Cataloging, and Reports.
One new CARLweb feature of particular note allows patrons to view tables of contents and images of book covers via the PAC. While a patron conducts a search, these images appear on the title list and full record, and can be viewed in a larger format with a simple click of the mouse. The initial delivery from CARL includes more than 220,000 tables of contents and 550,000 book jacket images, with 16,000 additional images furnished each month. The service is easily activated and the database resides on a separate server. In this way, servers for participating libraries are not compromised in terms of speed or storage space.
The new version also reflects the growing collaboration between CARL and TLC. CARLweb 3.6 links directly with TLC's Library.Request, a Web-based program that frees librarians from the administrative burdens of interlibrary loans (ILL) and eliminates the time and costs associated with submitting ILL requests through nationwide channels. Another innovative development allows for proximity and adjacency searching to be used by an advanced searcher or librarian exploring the PAC. A further enhancement gives patrons a variety of additional self-renew options for the items on their account.
In making today's announcement, Annette Bakhtiar, Chief Executive at TLC/CARL, stated “The introduction of CARLweb 3.6 is in direct response to the needs of our customers. It is also the latest in a series of developments that demonstrates how well the TLC and CARL organizations have pooled their talents to deliver new levels of efficiency, accuracy and enjoyment for librarian and patron alike.”