SirsiDynix Upgrades Digital Asset Management System

Library automation company SirsiDynix yesterday announced the release of its Portfolio digital asset management system, an upgrade to its previous Hyperion system.

The Portfolio system integrates with SirsiDynix's Enterprise discovery interface and adds new elements to the old system, including optical character recognition (OCR) technology and new search and security capabilities. The Portfolio system is also compatible with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), allowing harvesting of data from both local collections and external sources. OAI-PMH support is available in other vendors' digital asset management products, including Ex Libris's DigiTool and Innovative Interfaces' Content Pro.

According to SirsiDynix VP of library relations Berit Nelson, full-text indexing capability was optional with Hyperion but is a standard part of the Portfolio system. The Portfolio system can also deal with assets beyond text and images, including audio and video, that Hyperion did not.

Several new features, Nelson told LJ, were added to the Portfolio system as a result of a planning process that included customers in SirsiDynix's Strategic Planning Program; the company received several comments and requests from customers who were interested in being early implementers.

Nelson said that SirsiDynix plans to eventually end support for Hyperion as the Portfolio system is more widely implemented, though she did not specify when that would happen.