Pisa, July 14th, 1999. Atlantis srl, Ex Libris exclusive distributor in Italy, announced today that the University of Pisa has signed a contract for the installation of the latest version of ALEPH 500.

The University of Pisa was founded in 1343. This is the third institution in Pisa «leaning» towards ALEPH, along with Scuola Normale Superiore, actually the first Italian ALEPH user, and Istituto Superiore Sant'Anna.

At the University, ALEPH will go into production by November 1999 on a SUN UltraEnterprise server and replace four different systems (ATLAS, UNILIBIO, ERASMUS and ISIS TECA). The Pisa University library network comprises 66 individual libraries, including the Municipal and District Libraries, with a collection of some 1.3 million volumes, a staff of 200 librarians and a student population of 45,000.

Atlantis will handle the installation of ALEPH500, the migration of about 300,000 records, training and project management, along with first line support.

Professor Modica, Pisa's Principal, announced the decision to make ALEPH 500 "the new and only software for the automation of every library in the university system." ALEPH 500 was selected for its client/server architecture, Oracle RDBMS, GUI and Web OPAC interfaces and its year-2000 compliance.

This latest and most prestigious awards represents ALEPH's 51st installation in Italy, Pisa being the 21st university to select ALEPH as its library automation system.