IPSWICH, Mass. — October 8, 2020 — The National Central Library of Florence (BNCF) is the first national public library to have launched FOLIO. BNCF is using FOLIO for the management of users and circulation operations as well as for some pre-cataloging activities. The implementation project, led by @Cult, included the creation of a new website, the renewal of the OPAC and FOLIO hosting services from EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO).
In August, BNCF began managing all the functional services for the circulation of documents with the help of the FOLIO LSP and new front-end systems designed to communicate with FOLIO. Since then, BNCF has migrated the data of more than 200,000 users and approximately 3 million publications to FOLIO. All the applications used are open source, as requested by Italian law and strongly supported by the BNCF, which chose the supplier through an initial expression of interest and then a tender.
@Cult Chief Operations Officer Tiziana Possemato says implementing FOLIO has far-reaching consequences. “The challenge of an open source project of such magnitude is seizing the opportunity FOLIO presents in becoming part of such a widespread community, made up of librarians, developers and vendors. This is an important step that will allow Italy to be a leader in library innovation that goes beyond all national borders, becoming spokespeople for FOLIO integrations not only in Europe but even worldwide.”
The BNCF implementation owes its success to strong collaborations between @Cult and EBSCO and with the BNCF staff coordinated by Digital Librarian Chiara Storti and Head of Information Services Cristiano Corsani.
Chiara Storti, the execution manager for BNCF, says the implementation paves the way for the further development of new services for users. “The close collaboration between BNCF, @Cult and EBSCO has allowed us to achieve a result that successfully set objectives related to the translation of the interface and the ‘localization’ of a product born in a distant international environment. The National Central Library of Florence wanted to make a concrete choice in the direction of open source community and is hoping to be a reference point for other Italian libraries.”
About @Cult SRL
@CULT Srl (www.atcult.it) is an Italian consulting and software development SME aimed at delivering effective and innovative tech solutions to improve information management and knowledge sharing for GLAM market. Over the years, company efforts and R&D activities have been directed to the Semantic Web technologies, being able to provide methods, technologies and tools to Linked Data generation and management. Among the most significant recent projects, SHARE Catalogue, SHARE Virtual Discovery Environment, SHARE Art, all based on the company LOD Platform technology.
@CULT is a provider of ILS solutions and since 2017 has enthusiastically joined the FOLIO Community contributing with its efforts to the FOLIO platform implementation. @CULT is currently engaged in the development of MARCCat, the cataloging app, and strongly focused on FOLIO marketing, sales and implementation in the Italian and international market.
About BNCF
The National Central Library of Florence collects, preserves and documents the historical memory of the Nation since 1861. It has a patrimony of over eight million volumes, including manuscripts and printed books, and serves the study and specialized research needs of users from all over the world.
Visit the BNCF website to learn more: https://www.bncf.firenze.sbn.it/biblioteca/chi-siamo/
About FOLIO
FOLIO is a collaborative effort among libraries, vendors, developers and consortia that leverages open source technology and a community-based effort to redefine library services and innovate based on library futures. By building on what libraries need and by leveraging library expertise as well as vendor capacity and velocity, FOLIO is designed to move libraries forward, build on the services they provide and redefine the role libraries play within their institution. FOLIO also levels the playing field and makes open source technology available to all institutions regardless of size or staffing. FOLIO brings vendors together to innovate and host services for customers and introduces open source as a service to libraries. To sign up to participate or receive more information, go to www.folio.org.
About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the leading discovery service provider for libraries worldwide with more than 11,000 discovery customers in over 100 countries. EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) provides each institution with a comprehensive, single search box for its entire collection, offering unparalleled relevance ranking quality and extensive customization. EBSCO is also the preeminent provider of online research content for libraries, including hundreds of research databases, historical archives, and clinical decisions tools serving millions of end users at tens of thousands of institutions. EBSCO is the leading provider of electronic journals and books for libraries, with subscription management for more than 385,000 serials, including more than 170,000 e-journals, as well as online access to more than 1,500,000 e-books. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: www.ebsco.com. EBSCO Information Services is a division of EBSCO Industries, Inc., a family owned company since 1944.
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For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Vice President of Communications
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebsco.com
