with apologies for cross-posting:

R.R. Bowker Introduces Ulrich’s Resource Linker™,
Cost-Effective Tool for Libraries to Link All Serials in Collections

Bowker to expand range of solutions offered to libraries by adding OPAC
Enrichment

New Providence, N.J. – January 13, 2005 – R.R. Bowker, a leading provider
of bibliographic information, today announced the introduction of Ulrich’s
Resource Linker™, a new tool that integrates all of a library’s
periodicals through a single service and allows library patrons to easily
connect to those holdings by following a few simple links.

The new product was developed in partnership with Openly Informatics,
Inc., a software company that has led the industry in developing “link
resolver” technology built on the NISO OpenURL Standard. Ulrich’s Resource
Linker is a fully hosted solution, which means that the library’s staff is
not burdened with the set-up, maintenance and updating of a link server,
nor are they tasked with keeping track of all the changes in the various
collections they hold in their catalogs.

Bowker is making the product available with the most flexible pricing
model of any link resolver currently in the marketplace, and is also
offering significant discounts for library consortia as well as any
existing customers of ulrichsweb.com™ or the Ulrich’s Serials Analysis
System™, two other Bowker serials products for libraries. This approach to
pricing makes it affordable for libraries of all sizes to match their
collections to a single service that best fits their budget and user
communities’ needs.

“Ulrich’s Resource Linker brings a trusted, authoritative source of
journal and article access to libraries of all shapes and sizes by
providing a library-specific A-to-Z list, an easy-to-use journal and
article search engine, subject browsing and reliable content updating,”
said Boe Horton, senior vice president and general manager of the library
division for New Providence, N.J.-based R.R. Bowker. “Bowker’s objective
and unbiased position in the marketplace gives librarians confidence that
the products they buy from Bowker are vendor-neutral and offer linking to
the library’s resources, regardless of publisher, aggregator, subscription
agent or ILS system. Moreover, our vendor-neutral stance ensures that a
library does not have to purchase any other Bowker products in order to
subscribe to Ulrich’s Resource Linker.”

According to Horton, the new product is driven by a comprehensive
knowledgebase of database sources and targets that includes more than a
thousand providers of e-journals, aggregated full-text databases,
abstracting and indexing databases, and other research resources that are
regularly updated by Bowker.

“We designed Ulrich’s Resource Linker to operate with an interface that is
easy to use and also easy to customize for each individual library,
including the ability to display their preferred colors and logos so that
the system has the same look and feel as their other patron resources,” he
said. “The title lists and local holdings are customizable as well,
empowering librarians with the ability to adapt the system based on their
own coverage dates, the order of displayed links and the extended services
to which they want to provide links.”

"We're really excited to be working with Bowker,” said Eric Hellman,
president of Openly Informatics, Inc. "The combination of Bowker's decades
of experience in serials metadata and management paired with Openly's
leading edge technology in Ulrich's Resource Linker results in a
compelling solution to the needs of today's on-the-web libraries."

Ulrich’s Resource Linker will be unveiled to the library profession at the
2005 Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association which will be
held January 14-17, 2005 in Boston. The system will be available for
personalized demonstrations on the exhibit floor of the meeting at the
Hynes Convention Center (Booth #218). For more information about the new
product, please go to www.ResourceLinker.com.

About Openly Informatics, Inc.
Openly Informatics, Inc., is the world's leading provider of linking
software and services for OEM distribution. Openly Informatics' software
and data can be found inside solutions developed and marketed by the
world's leading integrated library system and information aggregator
vendors. More information on Openly Informatics, Inc. is available at
www.openly.com.

About Bowker
Founded in 1872, R.R. Bowker is North America’s leading provider of
bibliographic information, and is also the official agency for assigning
ISBNs in the United States. The company’s flagship product, Books In
Print, is available on the Internet at www.booksinprint.com, on CD-ROM and
in hardbound print format. Ulrich’s Periodicals DirectoryTM is available
in CD-ROM and in hardbound print format and is accessible on the Internet
at www.ulrichsweb.com. For more information, please visit
www.bowkersupport.com or call +44(0)1342 310461.