British Library Chooses Percussion Software’s Rhythmyx ECM Solution

LONDON – 14 April, 2005 – In the week that celebrates the 250th anniversary of the first publication of Dr Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, Percussion® Software today announces that the British Library has chosen Rhythmyx™ Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution to help modernise and restructure the organisation’s website. Percussion’s Rhythmyx will be deployed to manage content across the organisation’s key sites. The British Library will consolidate several of its web offerings onto a single Rhythmyx platform which will be used to manage its popular learning site as well as the main British Library corporate site (www.bl.uk).

With over 5,000 pages of content, the British Library’s website serves business and industry, librarians, academics and students, the general public in the UK and worldwide. The organisation required a flexible ECM solution that would allow it to consolidate its varied web content onto one single platform. It also needed a solution that is compliant with accessibility standards and consistent within the overall brand guidelines of The British Library.

"The British Library is committed to ensuring that the world’s intellectual, scientific and cultural heritage is made as accessible as possible to businesses, higher education, library professionals and the general public alike," said Adrian Arthur, Head of Web Services Delivery, The British Library. "Speaking extensively with many of our peer organisations such as the V&A, The Natural History Museum, all of whom have worked with Rhythmyx, we are very satisfied with our decision."

Rhythmyx offers the British Library an out-of-the-box content management solution enabling it to streamline the content authorisation processes through Rhythmyx’s audit trails and workflow capabilities. The software’s De-Coupled Delivery architecture, which separates the management of content from the content delivery environment, will allow The British Library to reuse content and publish to multiple sites, without incurring any incremental licensing costs.

Rhythmyx will first be used to manage the organisation’s 1,000 page learning site.
The site has a vast range of information available and is used as an online resource by teachers, students and the general public.

A robust ECM solution, Rhythmyx manages web content, documents, digital assets, portals and scanned images. The solution offers rich functionality out-of-the-box, allowing customisation to be focused on meeting specific needs, and easy on-going administration by IT staff. By delivering a range of pre-built application functionality through Rhythmyx FastForward for Web Content Management (WCM), Rhythmyx allows organisations to implement the functionality they need today whilst ensuring that they can meet tomorrow's needs with an extensible, standards-based architecture. With the industry's only De-Coupled Delivery architecture, Intelligent Relationships and Active Assembly, Rhythmyx solves the key content management challenges of enabling true content reuse and cost-effective multi-channel delivery.

Adrian Arthur added: "Rhythmyx will allow us to manage our content more effectively from one central platform but with the ability to adapt to managing data across numerous repositories. The software meets all of our key IT requirements as well as helping us maintain our high standards in accessibility and reduce our costs."

The next project for which Rhythmyx will be used is to manage the British Library’s corporate website which is the gateway for three million annual users. Rhythmyx will allow the British Library to carry out content changes far more quickly and efficiently.

Joseph Wykes, managing director European operations, Percussion Software: "The British Library is an extremely well-respected institution and one that has extensive knowledge and experience in making valuable information available to the general public in an innovative and interesting way. This is another ringing endorsement of our capability to work in effective partnership with high profile public sector organisations."

-ENDS-


About Percussion
Percussion Software's family of practical software solutions enables customers to maximise both the value and quality of their enterprise content through cost-effective content management, ease of content re-use, optimised delivery to multiple channels and increased efficiency. The company's flagship product, Rhythmyx, based on open standards, is the first Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution to provide cost-effective, multi-channel delivery of easily reusable content.

Percussion’s portfolio of over 2,500 global customers includes, Bayer, Hitachi, IBM, MasterCard International, Motorola and Toshiba. Its UK customers include, ARM Ltd, Colgate, DLA Piper Rudnick, ICI Paints, Intel, National Express, NESTA, Newcastle Building Society, NSPCC, Natural History Museum, Nottingham Trent University, Prudential Insurance, Symbian, and The Tate. More information can be found on the Web at www.percussion.com.

Percussion Software is a registered trademark and Rhythmyx, Lyrix, Active Assembly and De-Coupled Delivery are trademarks of Percussion Software. All other registered trademarks and trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

About the British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The British Library's collections include 150 million items from every era of written human history beginning with Chinese oracle bones dating from 300 BC, right up to today's newspapers. Further information is available on the Library's website at www.bl.uk

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For more information, please contact:

Jim Hawker
Threepipe Communications
T: +44 0207 470 8830
E: jim@threepipe.co.uk