ENCompass
Already in place at three development partner sites, ENCompass now provides even more academic and research libraries around the world with integrated access to their print, electronic, and digital collections, including local and remote electronic databases and local digital collections. Designed for unified access to the varied collections of any library, ENCompass allows libraries to design master architectures of print, electronic, and digital collections and offers users a single search across all formats with relevance-ranked results sets. The only product of its kind on the market today, ENCompass provides the creation of metadata, the organization of collections of metadata, and an overarching layer of navigation to assist researchers in discovering previously underused digital collections, according to the company.

ENCompass continues to evolve with the assistance of three development partner sites: Cornell University, the Getty Research Institute, and Kansas State University. Each site is unique, with private and public collections integrated into ENCompass at the institutions. According to the announcement, ENCompass allows each institution to organize digital collections in ways that make sense to the resources and needs of that institution. Cross-institution collection development can also be a reality with the integration of Z39.50 in ENCompass.

For staff, ENCompass provides a simple Windows-based drag-and-drop collection-building feature with reduced data-entry-organizing digital collections. For navigation, ENCompass includes a powerful search engine that grasps all metadata forms, regardless of digital format.
 

Ithaca College Library
Serving over 6,000 students and 500 faculty members, the Ithaca College Library plans to implement the Voyager system this September. The library's Voyager launch will be simultaneous with a major renovation of three floors of the library.

With so many projects on the table, the library staff has a plan for learning the new system and experiencing a redesigned work environment. "We plan to take our time and use an out-of-the-box version of the Voyager Web catalog for a time," said Margaret Johnson, college librarian at Ithaca College. "The simplicity of Voyager setup and the opportunity to continually modify the Voyager system are benefits for the library staff. Because we can change the system over time to meet our needs, there is less pressure on [us]. Everyone has an opportunity to participate in the ideas for the new look and feel, and this gives the staff's ideas more of a chance to be heard.

"The Voyager implementation gives us an opportunity to re-examine the way we're doing Web pages and ask ourselves what makes the most sense now, especially with the opportunity for Z39.50 integration of resources," Johnson said. "Now we can evaluate if abstract-and-indexing databases belong in the catalog instead of where we currently display them, on a separate page of our library Web site. There are lots of options and chances for combinations of resources...."

Founded as the Ithaca Conservatory of Music in 1892, Ithaca College continues to uphold a music-study curriculum in addition to a broad range of studies in humanities and sciences. The college's music focus is supplemented by a large music collection in the library, including scores, sound recordings, and print materials. In addition to the Milton Cross Collection of radio scripts and memorabilia, special collections at the Ithaca College Library include the Rod Serling Archives, a grouping of television scripts, films, and related materials.

Source: Endeavor Information Systems, Des Plaines, IL, 847/296-2200; http://www.endinfosys.com.