In excess of 100,000 order lines per month are passing through the EDI clearing house provided by Talis Information Ltd's Data Centre. Annually this figure translates into over a million order lines.

By July of this year 71 libraries and 68 suppliers were using this service. "Using Talis' EDI ordering facility provides a seamless and transparent service to our customer" says Tony Stevens, Infrastructure Manager. "The advantages for libraries using an LMS include not having to subscribe to a VAN provider and there is no need for an extra PC to run the software for the library – all the functionality required is provided by the LMS and because of this library staff require no specialist knowledge of EDI formats".

An optional offering is the addition of Talis Cataloguing Service, whereby shelf-ready stock can be provided to libraries, and a complete bibliographic record added to the library's database by the time the book or other media arrives.