BLACKSBURG, VA - VTLS (Visionary Technology in Library Solutions) Inc. announced today that it will be opening a new, wholly-owned subsidiary in Melbourne, Australia. VTLS Australia, managed by Hengzhong Ding, will have two main goals. First, it will serve the growing number of VTLS customers in Australia by providing local support. Second, it will do selected software development work to meet the needs of VTLS' continued expansion in Australia and the Pacific Rim.
The new office, which officially opens on December 1, 2008, will represent all VTLS products including Virtua and VITAL. Virtua is VTLS’ flagship integrated library system, with specialized support for FRBR and archival systems. Existing local support for Virtua will continue with no changes until the first quarter of 2009. VITAL is an institutional repository product based on Fedora software, a popular and widely used open-source system. Support for the Australian VITAL customer base will be led by Prashant Pandey, manager for VITAL.
"Australian Research Repositories Online to the World (ARROW) is a strategic customer for VTLS. The VITAL product has benefited immensely by the development partnership with ARROW. We are pleased to offer direct support from a location in Melbourne and to take on several communication and support responsibilities previously provided by ARROW. Over the past few years, VTLS has accomplished much in the area of library solutions and institutional repositories, and we feel that this is the time to expand our presence in this part of the globe," said Vinod Chachra, president and CEO of VTLS. The cooperative development program between ARROW and VTLS began in June 2004 and ends in December 2008.
Referring to the opening of the VTLS Australian office, David Groenewegen, ARROW Project Manager said, "ARROW welcomes this news, which we see as a strong indicator of VTLS' support for VITAL and the Australian user community. The ARROW - Project will conclude at the end of 2008, having enjoyed a productive development partnership with VTLS. We look forward to them continuing and expanding the support that the partnership has been providing to the community."
The VTLS Melbourne office will be located at the Toorak Corporate Business Centre, located at 17-33 Milton Parade, Malvern 3144, tel. 61 39832 0600.
For information about VTLS products and services, please contact Hengzhong Ding (dingh@vtls.com) or Prashant Pandey (pandeyp@vtls.com).
About VTLS Inc.
VTLS Inc. (www.vtls.com), a leading library automation company in business for over 30 years, provides visionary technology in library solutions to a diverse customer base of more than 900 libraries in over 32 countries. Virtua is our premier ILS solution, Visualizer is our facet-based data discovery tool, Fastrac is our RFID technology, and we also provide cutting edge software and services for Digital Libraries with Digital Imaging and VITAL, our Repository Services solution. VTLS is one of the few ISO 9001:2000 quality certified companies within the library industry.