PROVO, Utah—August 12, 2004—Dynix, the world's premiere provider of automation technologies, solutions, and services for libraries, today announced that customers using the Horizon Information Management System will have integrated access to Lighthouse!, the newest collection development companion from leading Canadian book wholesaler United Library Services (ULS). Lighthouse! achieves real-time communication with Horizon through the W3C-approved Vendor Integration Protocol (VIP) from Dynix.
VIP, which was introduced by Dynix to the library community in June 2003, will allow Dynix customers to send an ISBN inquiry directly to Lighthouse! to determine title availability and then transfer bibliographic and pricing information to an acquisitions purchase order line record in Horizon.
"Through the use of the VIP protocol, Lighthouse! will help librarians and acquisitions teams using Horizon to increase their productivity by eliminating unnecessary steps in the acquisitions process," said ULS General Manager Robin Hoogwerf. "Using the VIP Software Developer's Kit from Dynix, we easily configured Lighthouse! to receive ISBN searches from Horizon and send return messages containing bibliographic information without operator intervention."
Dynix launched the VIP Software Developer's Kit (SDK) in January 2004 to help vendors like ULS build the Web Services applications necessary to achieve integration between their systems and Horizon. The initial purpose of the VIP SDK was to maximize the number of book vendors able to integrate directly with Horizon, but Dynix quickly made the SDK available free of charge to all other ILS vendors in order to promote VIP as a common W3C Web Services industry standard and extend the benefits of the protocol to all libraries.
"We are pleased with the opportunity to work with United Library Services by sharing our Vendor Integration Protocol, which dramatically increases the productivity of librarians by achieving seamless integration with book vendor databases," said Dynix Vice President of Product Management Steven Nielsen. "Our VIP Software Developer's Kit is designed to help all libraries enjoy the efficiency that comes from streamlining the acquisitions process, and we look forward to working with other library system vendors in offering the benefits of VIP to their customers."
About W3C and Web Services
W3C is the Internet standards organization that coordinates the development of all standards around Internet technologies. Web Services is a new standard that has begun to see wide spread adoption throughout the Internet community because of its use of XML and the Simple Object Access Protocol for application-to-application communications. It is expected to have very broad appeal, and will enable new services that go beyond today's capabilities. Dynix will play a leading role to drive Web Services-based standards that enable new levels of functionality in the library community. See www.w3c.org/2002/ws for more information about Web Services.
About United Library Services
Now celebrating 65 years of service to Canadian libraries, United Library Services is the leading Canadian book wholesaler. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, United Library Services has full-service capabilities, including collection development, budget management, and custom in-house cataloging and processing. The company's technological capabilities range from Web-based ordering systems and on-line cataloging to electronic ordering and database management. United Library Services is focused on providing up-to-date and professionally developed hardcopy and Web-based selection tools, as well as automatic release plans that provide maximum support to acquisition staff. For more information about United Library Services, visit www.uls.com.
About Dynix
Dynix is the global leader in new-name sales of library management systems and has the largest installed customer base of any library technology vendor. As a committed advocate of the library community, Dynix serves academic, special, school, public, and consortium libraries in over 40 countries. Dynix has more than 100 professional librarians on staff and proven experience in software leadership. Since 1983, Dynix has provided customers visionary technology solutions that support the latest industry standards and offer intuitive functionality. For complete corporate information and a guide to Dynix products and services, visit www.dynix.com.