Talis (Library corporation)
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In 1969 a number of libraries founded a small co-operative project, based in Birmingham to provide services that would help the libraries become more efficient. The Birmingham Libraries Cooperative Mechanisation Project, or BLCMP, was a visionary idea. The concept of automation was so new that the term Mechanisation was often used in its place.
BLCMP started a co-operative catalogue of bibliographic data at the start of its work, a database that now contains many millions of records. This shared approach to creating metadata is the very forefather of more modern, internet-based, community ventures such as IMDB, Freebase and others. But this was back in 1969 when shipping this data around involved printing cards and putting boxes on trucks.
BLCMP moved into using microfiche and later IBM mainframes with dedicated terminals at libraries in the mid-seventies and was one of the first library automation vendors to provide a GUI on top of Microsoft Windows to provide a better interface for end-users. The Integrated Library System was first called Talis. Talis became the name of the company during re-structuring and the ILS became known as Alto. In 1995 Talis was the first library systems vendor to produce a web enabled public access catalogue and has been first in many initiatives. They are the leading ILS vendor in the UK.
Much of Talis' work now focusses on the transition of information to the web, specifically the Semantic Web and Talis are leading much of the debate about how this affects traditional libraries[1]. See Library 2.0.
Talis is majority employee owned and based in Birmingham, England
