Library Technology Guides

Registration now open for SirsiDynix's tenth-ever Connections Event. SirsiDynix, a leading provider of library technology solutions, is celebrating its tenth-ever Connections event—a free online conference taking place this October 22 through 24—and is thrilled to invite library professionals everywhere to attend. [Full Announcement].

ShanghaiRanking's Academic Ranking of World Universities 2024. The 2024 Academic Ranking of World Universities is released today by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy. Since 2003, ARWU has been presenting the world's top universities annually based on transparent methodology and objective third-party data. It has been recognized as the precursor of global university rankings and the most trustworthy one. This year, more than 2,500 institutions were scrutinized, and the best 1,000 universities in the world are published. [Full Announcement].

Cornell H. Winston announced as President of the American Association of Law Libraries. The American Association of Law Libraries announced that Cornell H. Winston will lead the Association as the 2024-2025 president. Winston, who was elected by his fellow members in the fall of 2022, officially began his term as president at the conclusion of the 2024 AALL Annual Meeting & Conference in Chicago. With a distinguished career of 36 years in law librarianship, Winston brings a wealth of leadership and experience to AALL. His tenure includes participation on many committees, serving as the AALL Treasurer, and being an Executive Board member. He is currently the law librarian and records center supervisor for the United States Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, California. [Full Announcement].

Columbia University selects FOLIO as new LSP with EBSCO FOLIO's support. The Columbia University Libraries joins the growing number of Association of Research Libraries member institutions to adopt the FOLIO Library Services Platform with the support of EBSCO Information Services. EBSCO will provide comprehensive hosting, implementation and support services to transition Columbia Libraries from the existing Voyager system to FOLIO. [Full Announcement].

IIIF Managing Director Hired. Martin R. Kalfatovic will be taking the role of Director for the IIIF Consortium. Martin brings 20 plus years of senior management skills from his positions at the Smithsonian Institution and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. In his role at IIIF-C, Martin will lead the organization in supporting IIIF's advances and continue to broaden its international adoption. He will be particularly attentive to evolving the Consortium's technological and community activities to maintain its already strong partner engagement. [Full Announcement].

Cornell University. Research repository arXiv receives $10M for upgrades. Cornell Tech has announced a total of more than $10 million in gifts and grants from the Simons Foundation and the National Science Foundation, respectively, to support arXiv, a free distribution service and open-access archive for scholarly articles. The funding will allow the growing repository with more than 2 million articles to migrate to the cloud and modernize its code to ensure reliability, fault tolerance and accessibility for researchers. [Full Announcement].

Vermont State University. Vermont State University announces a new all-digital academic library. Vermont State University announces a new all-digital academic library, effective July 1, 2023. This was a data-driven decision in response to student feedback collected via student surveys and meetings with the Student Advisory Board. The libraries of Vermont State University have seen year-over-year declines in circulation of physical materials. [Full Announcement].

Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation joins the Library Accessibility Alliance. The Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation (IPLC) joins the Library Accessibility Alliance (LAA) as a partner to advance accessibility for library electronic resources, with the goal of providing equal access to information for all library users. [Full Announcement].

Collaborative Collection Development: a new IMLS-funded partnership. Ithaka S+R announced its participation in a new multi-institutional partnership to facilitate the cross-industry development of collaborative library collections. The project is generously funded through the Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant for Libraries, awarded to the National Information Standards Organization, the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration & Innovation, Lehigh University Libraries, and Ithaka S+R, along with 27 other partner organizations. [Full Announcement].

FOLIO Launches Nolana Release. The FOLIO Open Source Community has issued its fourteenth named release as the platform continues to add features and functionality to the library services platform. The Nolana Release contains updates to existing apps and features including acquisitions, bulk-edit, electronic resource management and many more. [Full Announcement].

DPLA Board of Directors elects Felton Thomas as chair. The DPLA Board of Directors has elected Felton Thomas, Jr., executive director and CEO of Cleveland Public Library, as its new chair at its annual meeting last month. His term as chair will extend through June 2025. Thomas will replace Denise Stephens, the Peggy V. Helmerich Dean of University Libraries at the University of Oklahoma, whose term of service has ended after six years, the last three of which she served as board chair. [Full Announcement].

IPLC launches new resource sharing software. Beginning in the summer of 2022, the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation (IPLC), a partnership of 13 academic research libraries, will launch ReShare Returnables, a new resource sharing software offering enhanced inter-library open sharing capabilities. IPLC has contracted with Index Data, a library software developer and service provider, to implement ReShare Returnables as part of its commitment to advancing library resource sharing systems. ReShare Returnables is the premier product of Project ReShare, a community of libraries, consortia, software developers, and open source advocates. Project ReShare is modeling mutual investment in open collaboration intended to break down the barriers and silos associated with commercial platforms and replace them with an inclusive, community-owned ecosystem. [Full Announcement].

FOLIO launches Lotus Release. The FOLIO Open Source Community has issued its twelfth named release as the platform continues to add features and functionality to the library services platform. The Lotus Release contains over 60 new features including test coverage and performance improvements, along with updates to existing apps like data import, data export, acquisitions and more. [Full Announcement].

arXiv. Librarians gain new insights into their researchers' arXiv usage. arXiv is partnering with Scopus to optimize that publication data and increase institution's visibility of their researcher contributions. Updated annually, the dashboards will help institutions build a more holistic picture of the research activities taking place across their campuses. Institutions will be better able to track changes in their institution's research outputs posted to arXiv, identifying arXiv usage in different subject categories over time. [Full Announcement].

NERL and Elsevier continue agreement and develop open access pilot. NERL, a consortium representing some of America's leading research institutions, and Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics, have established a new three-year agreement. The deal provides 13 of the NERL member institutions with ScienceDirect access and pilots retroactive open access for participating institutions' authors. In 2021, a project team of NERL and Elsevier representatives established the agreement terms to ensure continued access to Elsevier's journals and support the NERL core values of transparency, sustainability, equity, reproducibility, and flexibility. [Full Announcement].

FOLIO Launches Juniper Release. The FOLIO Open Source Community has delivered its latest named release as the platform continues to grow. The Juniper Release includes platform updates and integration improvements that will provide libraries with even more features and functionality when adopting FOLIO. [Full Announcement].

CU Boulder partners with Index Data on data migration for FOLIO. A project to employ an open source Libraries Services Platform (LSP) to manage materials and resources at the University Libraries and the William A. Wise Law Library reached a significant milestone in August when preparation for transferring data between the old system and the new began. Index Data, a software and services company specializing in creating and providing services for innovative products and tools for the library ecosystem, is managing this transfer of data from the legacy system to the FOLIO LSP. [Full Announcement].

Cornell University is Now Live on the FOLIO Library Services Platform with EBSCO FOLIO. Cornell University Library, a founding member of the FOLIO project, has become the largest research institution to adopt the FOLIO Library Services Platform with hosting and service support from EBSCO Information Services' EBSCO FOLIO. EBSCO supported the migration from Cornell's existing integrated library system (ILS) and will continue to provide hosting and service support to Cornell University Library. [Full Announcement].

Cornell University. Library launches future with FOLIO. At the start of July 2021, Cornell University Library made a giant leap to the future by implementing an innovative integrated library system (ILS) called FOLIO, becoming the first large research library in the world to migrate to the platform. [Full Announcement].

The FOLIO Community names new picks for Product Council and Technical Council. The results are in for the FOLIO Product Council and the Technical Council. Eleven community members were named to each council and will serve two-year terms. The makeup of the councils represents institutions around the world, library service providers and developers involved in the FOLIO community. The Product Council is charged with guiding the functional development and managing the scope of the platform. The Technical Council will be responsible for maintaining technical policies and best practices as well as the platform infrastructure and operational stability. [Full Announcement].