Features
The Ares system is designed to automate your library reserve services and provide fast, effective use for faculty, students and reserve staff. Ares provides around-the-clock access to your reserves collection and saves time for your faculty members and library staff.
Customizable Web Pages
The Ares web pages use a template-based system allowing libraries to markup the standard HTML web pages based on workflow needs or university branding.
OpenURL
The OpenURL feature allows teaching faculty to submit requests for electronic reserve materials via the library's local catalog.
Z39.50
Ares has a built-in Z39.50 interface to make searching for library owned material easier. Reserve desk staff can easily search the catalog, import shelving location and call number information and then print pull slips to retrieve materials.
Copyright Management
Ares allows for different methods of copyright management. To help you keep track of items, reserve staff can make notations if copyright is required or if copyright has already been obtained. Additionally, Atlas Systems has partnered with the Copyright Clearance Center so that Libraries can easily secure copyright permissions for their electronic reserves materials using either the standard rights management gateway or the new annual subscription service.
Notification of New Materials for Students
To provide an additional service to your campus community, Ares can provide alerts to students when new materials have been added for a specific course. There are two methods to ensure students will always know about new material:
- Email Alerts - When a new item is processed and posted for availability, users who have elected to receive alerts will receive email directly to their inbox.
- RSS feeds - Each course has a unique RSS feed that students may subscribe to through their favorite news reader such as Bloglines or Newsgator.
Freedom of Format
Ares allows for any type of file format to be added into the system ranging from Microsoft office documents to mp3 files. Library staff has ultimate control over which type of files they will allow on their system.
Access Control
To ensure that only authorized users have access to reserve items, Ares has 3 possible access control options. You can choose to have
- no restrictions
- limit access via a class password
- limit access via student id number
System Authentication
User accounts are required to provide all of Ares specialized features. To secure user accounts Ares allows for authentication through
- a standard Ares login using a secure hashed password
- LDAP
- Remote Auth
- . . . and many more, such as Cosign and Pubcookie.
User Hot Lists
The user hot list allows students to have their favorite reserve materials just a click away. The hot list uses a familiar and easy shopping-cart style method of adding and removing individual items.
Usage Tracking
Usage tracking allows library staff and course instructors to see which reserve materials are being used most. Reserve staff has the option of capturing anonymous statistics or detailed usage data that will show which user accessed a particular item.
TWAIN Compliant
After finding material, library staff can scan directly into Ares using any TWAIN compliant scanner. All Ares initiated scans are converted into Adobe Acrobat PDF files.