November 24, 2003—Brussels—Ex Libris is pleased to announce that the National Bank of Belgium has chosen the ALEPH 500 library management system to replace its current DOBIS/LIBIS software. The National Bank of Belgium is the country's Central Bank. Since the entry of the euro, the Bank has become part of the Eurosystem, under the aegis of the European Central Bank. The Bank serves the general public, companies, the Belgium State and the financial world. Its services include annual accounts, production of financial information and publications.
The Bank's Scientific Library is more than a century old and is permanently open to the public. The Scientific Library is one of Belgium's largest economic documentation centers. The library owns over 100,000 dedicated books, subscribes to more than 1,300 economic, financial and juridical journals, and owns a major collection of reports from Belgian and foreign institutions. The functional and technical qualities of ALEPH will better equip the library to fulfill the information needs of its internal and external patrons. The library's catalog has been available on the Internet for many years. It enables users to find a directory of hyperlinks, such as other economic and financial sites (www.nbb.be/library.htm).
The National Bank of Belgium takes its place among a number of national banking institutions that have chosen the ALEPH 500 system. These include the European Central Bank, De Nederlandsche Bank NV, Banco de Espana, Banca d'Italia, Banco de Mexico, and the Central Bank of Iceland.
About Ex Libris
Ex Libris is a leading worldwide developer and provider of high-performance applications for libraries, information centers and researchers. Ex Libris' ALEPH integrated library solution has been installed at over 800 sites and consortia in 50 countries. MetaLib, the information portal for library collections, and SFX, the context-sensitive link server for heterogeneous electronic resources in the scholarly information environment, have been adopted by more than 450 institutions in 30 countries. The DigiTool product, for the construction of digital collections as a component of an overall digital strategy, rounds out the Ex Libris product suite.