ENCompass 1.1
According to the company, ENCompass is the only fully integrated system for accessing the local library catalog, local and remote electronic databases, and digital collections with combined results sets and relevance feedback. ENCompass is a comprehensive research solution for integrating information from a variety of metadata types, including Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Dublin Core (DC), or locally developed metadata types.

ENCompass 1.1 brings expanded options for researchers to navigate results sets, such as visual representation of Endeavor's proven relevance ranking, a "jump" feature to allow researchers to move deeper into result sets, and simultaneous relevance ranking of all search sources, even Z39.50 databases.

The new release also moves forward Endeavor's integration of XML and XSL for displaying metadata and related holdings for individual records. "XML and XSL are new industry standards we're applying in the customization for the display of the records," said Sara Randall, Endeavor's Digital Library product manager. "We will continue this integration in ENCompass 2.0, available this winter, with a Web interface that has an extensive use of XML and XSL for the display and customization of the user front-end pages.

"It is important for the general library world to not forget that ENCompass is an open system and also compatible with non-Voyager libraries. We've created a really original, intuitive product that can connect research between our pioneering Voyager libraries around the globe, plus libraries that have selected another ILS vendor," said Randall. "Just imagine the possibilities for connecting similar collections from worldwide sites—there could be a real surge in the available research opportunities. The information is there, it just needs to be easily accessed, and ENCompass is the key for that."
 

Unicode
Drawing upon the experience and expertise of its global customers, Endeavor is now well-positioned to convert bibliographic, holdings, and authority records in Voyager to the Unicode UTF8 standard. Given the scope of this infrastructure change, Endeavor invited Voyager users from the U.K., Finland, and the U.S. to work with the Unicode standard and multilingual scripts as Endeavor's development staff plans for this critical phase progress. According to the announcement, the result will benefit all Voyager libraries by providing increased support for the input, display, and searching of multilingual records.

Endeavor, an associate member of the Unicode Consortium (http://www.unicode.org), first introduced Unicode capabilities in the 2000.1 release of its Voyager system. This first phase consisted of on-the-fly conversion of data in the MARC 880 field to the Unicode character set for display in WebVoyáge, the Voyager OPAC. With this important next phase, Endeavor continues to demonstrate its commitment to full implementation of the Unicode standard and advancement of Voyager's internationalization capabilities, enabling libraries to provide improved access to multilingual collections.
 

Auburn University Libraries
ENCompass will be used to unite Auburn University's diverse collections and provide single-source searching for multiple information resources, including the libraries'Voyager integrated library management system.

"Digital collections are a priority for Auburn in the next few years," said Sheri Downer, assistant dean for technical services and systems at the Ralph Brown Draughon Library of Auburn University. "It is important at Auburn that the library remain the central support area for education. We want to be one of the leaders in the development and support of education on campus. We have a variety of collections, but we needed a standard searching tool and there are unlimited projects we can do with ENCompass."
 

National Library of New Zealand
Interested in the ability to work with multiple data types and employ current technologies, the NLNZ will use ENCompass for integrated access to digitized collections and digitally born material, and in the future as a unified navigation layer to all of the library's resources.

"National libraries have challenges that other libraries do not have, needing to interact with several communities at the same time," said Adrienne Kebbell, business development analyst at the NLNZ. She explained that the NLNZ serves three core communities in New Zealand: the library community, the education sector, and the research community—requiring multiple metadata environments.

One of the first collections to be loaded into ENCompass will give online access to a range of art and music resources sourced from both the library's own collections and external providers. This is a pilot project for a wider initiative to provide online support to the whole New Zealand curriculum. The initial collection includes over 2,000 pieces of art, video, and music. "These are items currently only available to people who come to Wellington, so providing Web access to these resources is an important step," Kebbell said.

"We're looking forward to building virtual collections from our Voyager databases and our heritage collections," she said. "With ENCompass, we can pull information from both sources and present them through the ENCompass Collection Manager as a virtual collection."

Source: Endeavor Information Systems, Inc., Des Plaines, IL, 847/296-2200; http://www.endinfosys.com.