Last week we heard that the University of Derby have chosen to ‘soft launch’ their Prism 3 OPAC,  in a similar way to the University of Sunderland have (see Terry’s post).  University of Derby have used the Talis Design service to create a look and feel that ties in strongly with the rest of the University’s corporate image. The seamless transition that the person searching receives when moving from the catalogue home page to the contact page, or the University of Derby electronic library page will ensure that the experience of the student is one of a joined up institution. We are waiting to hear what the students from both Sunderland and Derby make of the new version of the catalogue with interest as the development of the service continues with regular releases and enhancements to features.

Over the past few months, we have seen ten customers now promote their versions of Prism 3 to live, either as the sole catalogue for their users or in parallel  with their existing Prism 2 interfaces.  As we hoped, we have a number of flavours of Prism 3, from interfaces like Derby’s to Southwark Councils and also dual language options like Conwy County Borough Council’s.  We have also seen some press attention for these interfaces, with the Library and Information Gazette using the Royal Scottish Academy of Drama‘s Prism 3 on their front cover of a recent issue.

This means that Talis Prism is now being used ‘live’ at a total of 10 institutions, enhancing the experience that those searching the library catalogue by combining innovative design with features such as book jacket images and faceted searching. These 10 libraries will shortly be followed by the other 25 that are currently implementing and we look forward to seeing what flavours of catalogue they will bring, and the others that follow on after them.