Biblionix to Provide Service Pro Bono

Austin, Texas – June 26, 2007
Biblionix today announced that its Apollo automation system was selected for the new library at the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Center (IGSC) in Kigali, Rwanda. As a public service, Biblionix is honored to provide the Apollo service to the IGSC at no cost.

“Biblionix’s beautiful and generous donation of Apollo was a gift we sorely needed to help the populace in Rwanda and genocide research in general,” said Kathy Carbone, Performing Arts Librarian of the California Institute of the Arts and IGSC volunteer librarian.

“As our Apollo family grows, we feel it is important to give back to the library community”, said Alexander “Xan” Charbonnet, founder of Biblionix. “As we observed Kathy’s volunteer efforts and dwelt on the mission of the IGSC, we knew that we had found a worthy recipient.”

Maintaining a server in Rwanda was a challenge the IGSC library did not want to undertake. Apollo’s approach of hosting the server on the Internet with global access provided the perfect solution, i.e. there is no cost or maintenance of server hardware. Apollo’s ease of use, especially in cataloging new items, was also compelling. Other factors were Biblionix’s excellent customer service and overall low price (noting that the pro bono offer arose after the IGSC’s decision).

“Apollo lets me manage the collection from my office in California or in Rwanda, and it provides catalog access to this critical resource from anywhere in the world,” continued Ms. Carbone.

The IGSC library’s Apollo account is on-line and operational now. It is accessible at http://igsclibrary.biblionix.com. For a quick look at the content, click the “See What’s Hot” link.

About the IGSC: Jean-Pierre Karegeye (Director of the IGSC) and Erik Ehn (Co-founder of the IGSC and Dean of the School of Theater, California Institute of the Arts) are working with partners in Rwanda to create a library specialized on genocide at the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Center in Kigali (IGSC). The IGSC library will house volumes related to genocide scholarship, along with documentation on art in all media committed to genocide research and recovery. It will provide much needed Internet access. It will also be a social nexus – a conference site, a place where survivors can share and record their testimony, where writers can share and store their work, and where scholars can access a public platform for their ideas.

California Institute of the Arts faculty and students, the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Group (Kigali, Berkeley), students from a range of schools, along with professional artists, travel to Rwanda and Uganda each summer to study the Rwandan genocide, with the history and interests of the region to explore (practically) the ways art may participate in processes of recovery and peace building.