June 29, 2000. Innovative Interfaces, Inc., a leader in information technology for libraries, will install its Millennium library automation system at three prestigious European libraries: École Normale Supérieure (Paris, France), Gothenburg City Library (Sweden), and Koc University (Istanbul, Turkey).

The École Normale Supérieure (ENS) is Innovative's first customer in France, and will join the growing number of libraries using Millennium throughout Europe. One of France's most competitive academic institutions, ENS libraries offer students and researchers an excellent source of knowledge, with access to over 450,000 bibliographic items.

Pierre Petitmengin, ENS Library Director, said, "Millennium was selected for its wealth of options and extensive functionality. ENS has five libraries, located at two sites in Paris, and Millennium respects the independent management and specialized services provided by each library, while allowing shared access to our large catalog collections.

"The choice of Millennium is the choice of modernity, with modules written in Java, unlimited Web OPAC, a complete French language system, and the adaptability to incorporate future technological advances in the library world."

Sweden's Gothenburg City (Public) Library is also upgrading to Millennium in order to support its 28 cooperating libraries and two mobile units. Services are provided to 400,000 users, with over 1,700,000 available items in the catalog.

"We chose Millennium as our new library system because of its functionality, flexibility, and stability. We wanted a fully integrated and fully functional system that would allow Internet access to our catalog, be easy to use, and be presented to the public in an attractive manner. We also had to consider our visually-impaired users, for whom we have special reading and talking (artificial voice) equipment. After comparing various systems, we are confident that the Millennium system is the best match for our requirements," said Anita Sindler, Director of Gothenburg City Library.

Koc University in Istanbul is a small, private institution, whose library has a collection of 136,000 print and audio-visual materials, with state-of-the-art computing facilities. Materials are acquired in Turkish, English, German, Italian, French, and Russian, as well as in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and other non-Western scripts. The library is currently moving to the university's newly constructed campus, with the inauguration of Millennium scheduled for the end of the year.

Jane Lindley, Library Director of Koc University, said, "In our search for a new system, the library undertook extensive market research, a detailed systems analysis, saw demonstrations of various systems, and thoroughly evaluated bids received. The library concluded that Millennium best met its requirements for an integrated library system with the option of an Oracle database, that would enable it to stay abreast of emerging technology as collections and user services expand."

Innovative's Millennium is both extensive and flexible, meeting the various needs of small and large, and academic and public libraries. Millennium offers the option for libraries to display OPAC menus in many languages, some of which include French, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Welsh.