Huntsville, Alabama (September 19, 1995) - Midway through the calendar year shows Unicorn moving strongly forward within the academic library market. As many industry experts forecasted, SIRSI continues to offer stable solutions to all sized libraries, gaining new ground in 1995 within the academic arena, capturing many migrations from AMERITECH's NOTIS Horizon system.
Since the first of the year, the following list of academic institutions have chosen SIRSI: Union College in Kentucky, University of Southern California, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Lehigh University, Rice University, Spring Hill College, College of William and Mary, Austin College, Eastern Mennonite University, Lebanon Valley College, Northampton Community College, Sacred Heart University, York University, Itawamba Community College, Jones County Junior College, Queens College, Rollins College, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Andover Newton Theological School, Dickinson College, University of Calgary, Sage Colleges, and University of New Brunswick.
The above group cites many reasons for their migration to the Unicorn system focused around the quality and flexibility of SIRSI's products and the competence and cooperative attitude of SIRSI's staff. "Our customers continue to seek flexibility in their automation system," states Jim Young, CEO of SIRSI. "They are supporting a variety of software/hardware configurations, providing campus-wide networking capabilities, and seeking simple user interfaces for both patrons and staff." SIRSI offers services that help libraries integrate these issues into a functioning whole while minimizing support. The company's goal is to involve the customer more in the system development process, expanding the knowledge base and comfort level that make it possible for library staff to become their own automation system managers.
Service and product innovations provided by SIRSI include: automation based on the UNIX operating system, the first library automation company to understand UNIX's portability value; first implementation of client/server architecture in the library field, recognizing its value to information management systems; development of VIZION, an exciting new software product that functions as an online research tool featuring the first customizable database for users of the internet and other networks: award-winning WebCat, the first product to allow libraries throughout the world to offer their complete catalogs and other services quickly and painlessly over the World Wide Web.
Today, SIRSI's systems serve hundreds of libraries and information centers with databases from a few thousand to millions of titles. Their integrated library system networks are installed in academic, public, K-12, law, medical, government and corporate libraries around the world. SIRSI operations are based worldwide and sell extensively in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia. For more information contact SIRSI at 689 Discovery Drive, Huntsville, AL 35806. Phone: (800) 242-2233, Fax: (205) 922-9818. Visit SIRSI's Home Page at: http://www.sirsi.com.