June 24, 2006:  For Immediate Release

National Library of Pakistan Chooses VIRTUA

Blacksburg, VA - VTLS is proud to announce that the National Library of Pakistan has chosen Virtua as their integrated library system. The contract marks another win in the long list of prestigious National Library customers using VIRTUA across the globe.

The National Library of Pakistan is the largest national depository of all published and copyrighted literature in the country. It is also the most comprehensive knowledge resource center in the country and serves as depository of some international organizations including the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Labor Organization (ILO).

"VIRTUA is Unicode compliant, which is of great help for the National Library since the majority of the collection is in Asian languages, especially the Urdu language," said Syed Ghyour Hussain, Research Officer at the National Library of Pakistan. "Moreover, VIRTUA adheres to all the international standards and protocols of library science, computer science and information technology. We wanted to choose a stable, robust system that was standards-based."

Inaugurated in August 1993, the National Library of Pakistan has two other branches, the Islamabad Public Library that acts as the lending division for the library, and the Model Children's Library that offers library services to children. At present, National Library of Pakistan has a collection of about 200,000 volumes, 70,000 bibliographic records and 100,000 item records. The library purchased VIRTUA with a 16-user license.