[Asis-l] Princeton Theological Seminary Library Movesinto the Digital Future with Mark Logic

[Nicole Engard]

New Digital Collection To Be Unveiled on Seminary Campus October 26

Princeton, NJ, October 26, 2007–When the librarians at Princeton Theological
Seminary were seeking to develop and expand their digital collections, they
decided to look beyond traditional library vendors to innovative companies
in the world of content publishing.

"We were looking to move forward with our digital collections as we approach
the Seminary's bicentennial in 2012" said Clifford Anderson, curator of
special collections at Princeton Seminary. "We had developed a system
in-house to deploy our XML-based digital content, which helped us to get
going with our digital projects. However, we were running up against its
limits—relatively slow response times, no good solution for searching our
XML content, and a fairly complicated programming model. We needed a far
more robust system to take our digital collections to the next level."

Anderson and his colleagues spent more than a year looking at options before
deciding on the MarkLogic Server, an XML content server from Mark Logic
Corporation. "What set the MarkLogic Server apart for us was the combination
of its powerful ability to store, query, search, and render XML-based
content with its wonderfully simple systems administration. Our team is
small and we need to stay agile. Mark Logic made it possible for us to build
and deploy applications directly in XQuery, without any additional
overhead," said Anderson.

Contemporary libraries face the challenge of competing with major
digitization projects outside the world of traditional librarianship. "We
recognize that the best way to compete under these constantly changing
conditions is to leverage our specialized knowledge of the content," said
Stephen Crocco, the Seminary's James Lennox Librarian. "The MarkLogic Server
will help us to unlock our XML content in ways we know will be most useful
to our users." Nicole Engard, the Seminary's newly hired metadata librarian,
is looking forward to developing new features on a regular basis. "I am very
excited to see what other publishers, such as O'Reilly, have achieved with
this tool and can't wait to provide patrons with new ways of researching
within our collection," she said.

"Princeton Theological Seminary is at the forefront of technical innovation
in libraries," said Andy Feit, vice president of marketing at Mark Logic
Corporation. "For libraries to compete with Internet search and other
sources of information they must find new ways to enable members to access
and interact with valuable and unique content. Using emerging technology
such as XML and XQuery to manage content is a breakthrough and we are
pleased to partner with the Seminary Library to provide a highly scalable,
high performing platform for its prized digital collections."

Digitizing library materials and thus making them accessible to scholars and
church leaders around the world is a key part of the Seminary's strategic
plan.

The Seminary Library unveiled its new digital collections at a joint meeting
of the New York Theological Library Association and the Southeast
Pennsylvania Theological Library Association on Friday, October 26 on the
Princeton Seminary Campus. The collections will contain a wealth of material
related to the history of Princeton Seminary, including the full run of the
Princeton Theological Review and the Princeton Seminary Bulletin. The system
will be available after that date at http://digital.library.ptsem.edu.

Princeton Theological Seminary was founded in 1812, the first seminary
established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. It is the
largest Presbyterian Seminary in the country, with more than 700 students in
seven graduate degree programs.

Mark Logic Corporation is the provider of the industry's leading XML content
server. Mark Logic works with providers of information products to
accelerate new product creation, deliver products through multiple channels,
integrate content from different sources, repurpose content into multiple
products, build custom publishing systems, and mine content to find
previously undiscovered information. The company holds two patents on the
innovative technology in MarkLogic Server, which enables companies to load,
query, manipulate, and render XML content using the W3C standard XQuery
language. For more information about Mark Logic, or to download a free trial
copy of the MarkLogic Server, go to www.marklogic.com or visit the Mark
Logic CEO blog at http://marklogic.blogspot.com.

For more information about the Seminary and its digital collections, contact
the curator of special collections Clifford Anderson at
clifford.anderson at ptsem.edu.

Thanks,
Nicole C. Engard
Metadata Librarian
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries
Email: nicole.engard at ptsem.edu
Web: http://libweb.ptsem.edu <http://libweb.ptsem.edu/>
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