Major Italian Universities Transition to EBSCO FOLIO ERM

NISO Member News

IPSWICH, Mass. — May 25, 2021

University of Ferrara (Unife) and University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE)  are the first two Italian universities to choose EBSCO FOLIO’s Electronic Resource Management (ERM). This transition to the EBSCO FOLIO ERM is the first step for libraries looking to fully adopt the FOLIO Library Services Platform (LSP).

The EBSCO FOLIO ERM allows libraries to manage the entire cycle of electronic resources — from initial evaluation to user access. The ERM integrates with the EBSCO Knowledge Base, which contains all library holdings, and EBSCO Discovery Service® (EDS), which ensures users have immediate and seamless access to the library's electronic resources.

EBSCO’s Vice President of Sales Latin Europe and Israel Gianluca Di Bella says this is a step forward in creating more choice and interoperability for Italian university libraries. “The EBSCO FOLIO ERM can be implemented before fully migrating to the full FOLIO system. Libraries including Unife and UNIMORE will benefit from simplified workflows, reduced manual work for staff and improved services for their users.”

Marina Contarini, Head of the Transversal Library Services Pole of the University of Ferrara, explains that the EBSCO FOLIO ERM has accelerated the expansion of the university's digital content, optimizing its use for the academic community, as well as facilitating the flow of management. "We have adopted EBSCO FOLIO ERM with the aim of improving the functionality of EDS and the integrated system of bibliographic research and services. Thanks to the ERM’s activation/deactivation procedure of the electronic collections integrated with the usage statistics, and the automatic population of data, we were able to eliminate the need for manual entries, thus making the acquired resources immediately available to users.”

UNIMORE’s Director of University Library System Maria Raffaella Ingrosso says that 2020 highlighted the importance of remote resources for students, making the need for e-resources widespread and transition imperative. “The constant migration from diverse and abundant print materials to online has only made it more difficult to manage resources with our current tools. We found FOLIO was the perfect solution to our needs, specifically functions including direct activation/deactivation of holdings, link usage statistics, linking individual resources to platforms, management tools and access credentials.”

EBSCO is one of the original founders of the FOLIO project and provides implementation, hosting and support through EBSCO FOLIO. Unife and UNIMORE are the first university libraries in Italy to begin transitioning to the FOLIO LSP and will serve as an example of how Italian universities can benefit from the innovativeness and flexibility of EBSCO FOLIO.

About These Organizations

About the University of Ferrara
The University of Ferrara is one of the oldest universities in the world, founded in 1391 by Marquis Alberto V d'Este with the permission of Pope Boniface IX. Today, the university is organized in 12 independent departments, 37 research centers and several libraries covering the biomedical area, the scientific-technological area and the humanistic area. The University of Ferrara offers 60 bachelor's and master's degrees to its approximately 23,000 students, 80% of whom are students from outside the province. The Library System has subscribed to several EBSCO resources, including the Discovery Service and Curriculum Builder, the integration plugin with e-learning platforms and Professional services "Holding management in ACNP", for the periodic updating of the electronic periodicals collections in the National Periodicals Collective Archives.

About the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
The university is located in Emilia Romagna and has about 1,000 faculty members and 20,000 students from all over Italy and abroad, with a prevalence of students from the region. The richness of the territory is reflected in the richness of the degree courses: the university in Modena offers courses in Mechanical Engineering and Vehicle Engineering, with the possibility of internships in famous car manufacturers such as Ferrari; courses on food and agriculture, taking up the tradition of balsamic vinegar from Modena; in addition, the Reggio Emilia campus offers courses on many topics, from the most futuristic, such as robotics to those more traditionally linked to the territory, such as ceramics. Over time, the university has decided to offer the best and most modern tools to its students and faculty, such as EBSCO eBooks, electronic journals, Full Text Finder and databases including Business Source Complete, CINAHL Plus, EconLit, Philosopher's Index, Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection. In addition, through EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS), the university provides its students and faculty with access to the entire library collection through a single platform.

About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the preeminent provider of online research content and search technologies serving academic, school and public libraries; healthcare and medical institutions; corporations; and government agencies around the world. From research, acquisition management, subscription services and discovery to clinical decision support and patient care, learning, and research and  development, EBSCO provides institutions with access to content and resources to serve the information and workflow needs of their users and organizations. EBSCO Information Services is a division of EBSCO Industries, Inc., a family-owned company since 1944. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: www.ebsco.com.