The 12th conference of ICAU an extended summary

Abstract

This is an account of the 12th conference of ICAU, the International Consortium of Aleph Users held at CEDEFOP, a remarkable educational center of EU in Thessaloniki, Oct 13-17, 2001. As Aleph's parent company, Ex Libris Ltd. is usually represented at these annual events, the conference is also a fórum for discussing bugs and for presenting topicai deveí-opments. Following the introduction of new Aleph users - Harvard, MIT, California Digital Library among them - the developers demonstrated the new tools. Marketed separately from the standard ALEPH500 and applicable in non-Aleph environment as well, the new twin applications Metalib and SFX amount to no less than a 'killer app'. A gateway and a context-sensitive linking device, resp., these tools integrate the library with the heterogeneous resources outside the library collection. A third device, DigiTool, still in its beta version, is a handy manage¬ment system of digital objects and multimédia. These tools, especially Metalíb and SFX, are so important in library service that their purchase is considered indis-pensable for Aleph libraries as well as non-Aleph systems in Hungary.