McHENRY, IL - January 13, 2000 - School districts can more easily share library resources and electronic records among their schools with Follett Software Company's newest Union Catalog Plus v4.0 for Windows. Union Catalog Plus connects multiple libraries together electronically, greatly expanding students' access to information while saving districts time and money.

Union Catalog Plus Benefits Students, Staff and Administration

• Students gain easy, quick access to additional resources—they can search district-wide resources via the OPAC in a single search from any library in the district.
• Library staff will spend less time in redundant cataloging—they can quickly exchange existing MARC records from the union database or keep their own.
• Schools can more easily borrow resources from other libraries—making duplicate purchases unnecessary and leaving extra money for additional resources.

Abilene Independent School District in Abilene, Texas, has been using Follett Software's new Union Catalog Plus in its 34 schools since it was released for beta testing. Eileen Dunne, the district's coordinator of library services, commented on the new version, "Union Catalog Plus saves us time and eliminates duplicate work." When a library acquires a new title that another district library already has, they can simply enter the name of the title and its MARC record will automatically import. Or they can review the record first, and then determine whether to copy it.

Tom Schenck, president of Follett Software, commented, "Students need access to the best information, whether it resides in their own school's library or at another library in the district. Union Catalog Plus makes it easy for them to locate that information no matter where it is, with minimal effort and time."

Flexible to Meet Specific Needs

Union Catalog Plus can be adapted to meet individual district needs. It allows districts to process and catalog materials at the district level, individual sites or at both the district and sites simultaneously. And it enables districts to determine how MARC data will flow throughout the district, varying by site if they choose. Some of the new features available with Union Catalog Plus include:

• Automated data exchange: Automatically updates the district and member databases without user intervention, whether cataloging is done at individual sites, the district or both.
• Local tags preserved: Allows individual sites to keep local tags, including 59X local notes, 856 electronic access tags and 9XX (except 940) local information tags.
• On demand data sharing: Members can search for and download individual MARC records instantly from the union, Alliance Plus™ MARC data CD or local database.