On June 7, 2004, the Carpenter Library at the University of North Florida will be the second State University Library (SUL) to implement a new library management system and Web-based public catalog under a joint, cooperative project including Florida's 11 State University and 28 Community College libraries.

In 1999, the SUS Libraries, through the Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA), began the process to seek approval and funding to replace the current NOTIS Library Management System, in service since 1985. NOTIS, Inc., was no longer in business, all maintenance and upgrades required specialized programmers at FCLA, and computer mainframe server support was becoming very expensive in comparison to other commercial systems and technologies.

Upon Florida legislative approval and an additional mandate that Florida's community colleges be included in the project through the College Center for Library Automation (CCLA), the State University System libraries issued an Invitation to Negotiate (ITN).

In January 2002, the contract was awarded to Ex Libris, a turnkey library management system vendor based in Israel with an international presence. ALEPH 500, the library management system product, is a mature Oracle-based system with comprehensive features and functionality that have been developed and enhanced since 1980. The Ex Libris ALEPH system is currently in use at over 1200 sites in 51 countries. The system can be customized for each library's language and culture.

The 11 State University Libraries of Florida join other prestigious ALEPH users in North America, including Harvard (with requirements very similar to the SUS), Boston College, Brandeis, California Digital Library, McGill, MIT, Ohio State University, CUNY, SUNY, University of Michigan, Duke University, UC Santa Barbara, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Nevada, Notre Dame, University of Delaware, and Washington State University.

The migration kickoff began in February of 2002. FCLA and CCLA have separate central server installations and administrations in Gainesville and Tallahassee respectively. The SUS will migrate in groups. Year 1 with a 2004 cutover target includes University of Florida (May), University of North Florida (June), and University of West Florida (July). The remaining universities will implement their systems in 2005 and 2006.

For UNF, the ALEPH 500 system supports materials acquisitions (purchasing), accounts receivable/payable (fines and bills), emailed notices, cataloging, serials control and next issue prediction, circulation, inventory control, course reserves, web-based catalogs for each institution, a combined multi-institutional library catalog, patron-initiated services, and customizable features. The system is standards-based with state-of-the-art functionality used in business and industry. Depending on the user's Web browser and font selection, the library catalog can display most alphabets and languages.

Ex Libris Aleph 500 version 15.5.1 runs on an IBM p690 with AIX 5.1 and Oracle 9.2