In an interview appearing earlier this year in the Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, Mark Roux, the president of CyberTools for Libraries, discusses his product (Connor, 2009). Prior to his affiliation with CyberTools, Roux worked with the medical field providing research support and database troubleshooting assistance. In 1998, CyberTools was created from an acquired product that had been used by the Georgetown University Library Information System.
Roux reports that he is versed in all aspects of CyberTools' products and services (Connor, 2009). As such, he is able to work at both the systems and item-specific level. He prides himself on his near-daily contact with his clients. Certainly, it helps that the president of this company once worked, himself, as a technician in the field.
CyberTools is a “feature-rich” product, according to Roux (Connor, 2009). The CyberTools library aggregates data from multiple sources and presents it all through one search medium. CyberTools provides Software as a Service (SaaS). Roux's company believes that the library is the most important asset to an institution (if only more vendors felt this way...) and his employees strive to provide efficient, effective information technology assistance. Roux boasts that his company has had 100% hosting uptime for the past two and a half years, and was 99.999% effective in the three years prior to that. (“Hosting uptime” is the time a server is available, via the Internet, for use.)
It is worthy to note Roux's contribution to the medical field as an information professional. Not all company presidents have had this kind of experience in their respective fields of employment. Roux possesses a unique knowledge that he is able to contribute to his company. This, no doubt, can help to explain why his company is so supportive of libraries. It is evident that CyberTools, Inc. has put much effort into providing dependable customer assistance.
The company has made strides to keep current with the evolving technological trends (Connor, 2009). While users cannot directly add a new tag to a record, they can suggest a term. This term is submitted for review by the library staff. If approved, the term becomes a “see” reference in the catalog. In addition, CyberTools is poised to release an open-access collection of qualified health science resources, similar to, but distinct from PubMed Central (PMC), NCBI, and BioMed Central. By the end of 2009, Roux projects a federated searching feature to be included with his product, incorporating PMC, NCBI, and a handful of commercial sites. Roux envisions the future for CyberTools to be a product that is easy to use which also returns accurate, valuable data when searched.
One of the major weaknesses in library OPACs (Online Public Access Computers) is the poor user interface. If libraries wish to compete with their corporate counterparts, they will need to make their catalogs more accessible. This is one of many areas in which CyberTools could work to improve their ILS. As I will later mention in my review of CyberTools' user interface, the search capacity of this product is weak. There is no advanced search. As a librarian, I sometimes struggle to pull up even a known item within the FPL Library's catalog. CyberTools may be releasing new features, but they will impact only their medical/health science user base. This company should make improving catalog search capabilities a priority.
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Connor, E. (2009). Interview with Mark Roux, president of CyberTools for Libraries. Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, 6(3), 236-241. DOI:10.1080/15424060903173128
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