Atlantis Srl, the sole Ex Libris distributor in Italy, is pleased to announce that the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca and the Università degli Studi dell`Insubria have selected ALEPH 500™ as the library automation system for a consortium formed by the two institutions. The decision was reached in collaboration with Consorzio Interuniversitario Lombardo per l`Elaborazione Automatica (CILEA; www.cilea.it), a consortium to which the two universities belong and which is providing the system support for the project. The ALEPH 500 software resides on a server at the CILEA center; library staff members of the two universities are accessing the server to configure, customize, and manage the system.

On the basis of the consortium agreement between the two schools, a single bibliographic catalog has been created, to which two autonomous administrative databases are connected. With the assistance of Atlantis, the conversion of all the bibliographic data to UNIMARC format is now in progress, as well as the conversion of the administrative data from the automation system previously used by the universities, SBN/UNISYS. Currently, library staff members are undergoing training, with the project scheduled to go live in September 2002.

About the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca

Originally part of the Università degli Studi di Milano, the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca became an independent institution in 1999. Today this young university boasts eight faculties (Arts; Economics; Law; Mathematical, Physical, and Natural Sciences; Medicine and Surgery; Psychology; Sociology; and Statistics), which offer a total of 40 courses of study; a student enrollment of almost 28,000; and a teaching staff of approximately 800. The centralized library is housed in three units, a central library, science library, and medical library. At the end of 2001, the library contained 65,700 volumes, 1,965 serials, 341 microfilms, and 266 CD-ROMs. Rich in digital library services, particularly for an institution of such a young age, the library provides access from all university intranet workstations to 46 databases and 2,700 electronic journals. For more information about the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca library, please see www.biblio.unimib.it.

About the Università degli Studi dell`Insubria

The Università degli Studi dell`Insubria was established at the end of 1998 and has two campuses, Como and Varese, with approximately 7,000 students and a teaching staff of 354. Twenty-five degree programs are offered through five faculties, three at the Varese campus (Economics; Mathematical, Physical, and Natural Sciences; and Medicine and Surgery) and two at Como (Law, and Mathematical, Physical, and Natural Sciences). A central library system (SiBA) coordinates the acquisition and maintenance of the library`s resources to support research and teaching activities throughout the university. The library contains about 40,000 volumes, 680 subscriptions to paper journals, and more than 3,250 subscriptions to electronic journals, which are available on-line with the full text of articles. In addition, the university community can access more than 50 databases on-line from the university intranet. For more information about the Università degli Studi dell`Insubria library, please link to www.uninsubria.it and select Sistema bibliotecario SIBA (in Italian).