NEWS

Periodical Portal of the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation
of Graduate Education (CAPES) Goes Live with MetaLib and SFX

A celebration of the portal's ninth anniversary marks the launch of Ex Libris e-resource solutions in many of the CAPES institutions  

Ex Libris® Group is pleased to announce that the Periodical Portal-a virtual library of scientific and technological information resources maintained by the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education-has gone live with the SFX® OpenURL link resolver and the MetaLib® gateway and metasearch solution. Users in over 300 institutions of higher education will access the agency's vast collection of scholarly electronic resources via the Periodical Portal. The launch took place at a ceremony in Brasilia marking the ninth anniversary of the portal.

A consolidated search environment for accessing remote information resources, MetaLib streamlines the process of obtaining materials by presenting users with content from multiple information providers in a clear, familiar user interface. SFX offers a wealth of features that go far beyond basic link resolver functionality, including a comprehensive KnowledgeBase; an A-Z list; and CitationLinker, Collection Analysis, and Statistics modules. Both MetaLib and SFX merge cutting-edge technology with rich core functionality and easy implementation.

In anticipation of the launch of MetaLib and SFX at CAPES, the portal has been completely revamped and the number of available journals and e-books greatly increased. The new Periodical Portal offers users a more intuitive layout and content access that is customized to the researchers' areas of interest.

Speaking at the anniversary ceremony, Professor Jorge Guimarães, president of CAPES, commented: "The new version of the Periodical Portal, powered by MetaLib, will transform our ability to deliver scientific and technical information to the entire academic and research community in Brazil and will enable us to increase the international visibility of journals published in this country."  

The CAPES program director, Professor Emídio Cantídio, added: "The Periodical Portal desperately needed new and more sophisticated technology in light of the increasing number of electronic resources available via the portal. We required a federated search solution thatSpeaking at the anniversary ceremony, Professor Jorge Guimarães, president of CAPES, commented: "The new version of the Periodical Portal, powered by MetaLib, will transform our ability to deliver scientific and technical information to the entire academic and research community in Brazil and will enable us to increase the international visibility of journals published in this country."  

The CAPES program director, Professor Emídio Cantídio, added: "The Periodical Portal desperately needed new and more sophisticated technology in light of the increasing number of electronic resources available via the portal. We required a federated search solution that would enable our users to easily access material across thousands of journals and databases, and MetaLib best suits our unique requirements."  

In an interview for the Periodical Portal Web site, Carl Grant, president of Ex Libris North America, remarked: "CAPES is a world-class organization, and this implementation only furthers that reputation by offering an easy-to-use yet tremendously sophisticated integration of solutions to meet researchers' needs. The very large-scale CAPES project brings with it all the complexities of using a common set of software solutions to address a diverse set of requirements held by member institutions. Fortunately, the Ex Libris products offer rich functionality and the flexibility to do exactly those things."  

About the CAPES Periodical Portal
Created in 2000, the CAPES Periodical Portal provides easy access to scientific and technological information that the federal government of Brazil makes available to the Brazilian higher education system. Maintained by the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES), the portal offers over 21,000 full-text periodicals, 150,000 e-books, 126 citation databases, and 78 sites featuring the full text of books. The portal, which has been recognized for excellence by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), provides access to more than 1.3 million faculty members, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students, and technical and administrative staff from member institutions.

www.periodicos.capes.gov.br
http://www.exlibrisgroup.com