7 January 2008

Boston and Oxford -- Credo Reference, the award-winning online reference library, is pleased to announce its new agreement with the State of Mississippi. Credo is now partnering with the state's library consortium to provide all residents with online reference resources through their state-funded institutions.

The new agreement was made with the statewide consortium, MAGNOLIA (Mississippi Alliance for Gaining New Opportunities through Library Information Access), which has been purchasing online databases for publicly funded libraries in the state since 1997. Credo's growing General Reference collection of 270 titles from 58 publishers will now be accessible in all 50 of Mississippi's public library systems and in its state-funded academic and educational institutions, including eight universities, 16 community colleges and all the K-12 public schools, as well as in the state's own office library.

"After an intensive review process, MAGNOLIA selected Credo Reference as one of its new products to be made available to our libraries. The selection committees quickly recognized the quality of the interface and the breadth and depth of the content," commented Stephen Cunetto, MAGNOLIA Administrator of Systems. "We were drawn to the ease of use of the interface, the ability to search so many different sources simultaneously and the number of disparate publishers represented in the collection of resources. This tool will greatly enhance the reference sources available in Mississippi's publicly supported libraries. We are thrilled to be partners with Credo Reference."

"We believe researchers in Mississippi will be delighted with the enhanced research experience that Credo Reference provides," added Jeffrey LaPlante, Credo Reference Senior Vice President of Sales. "Not only is the content, which covers every major subject, constantly expanding, but since it's enriched with images, sound files, animations, maps and customizable data tables, the users will be provided with interesting and accurate contextual results."

Credo Reference, with offices in Oxford and Boston, has been offering completely customizable reference collections for libraries since 1999. Formerly known as Xrefer, Credo's General Reference and Specialist Reference services combine extensive content from multiple publishers with unique cross-referencing technology, effortlessly delivering authoritative answers to over four million researchers worldwide. Visit www.credoreference.com.

MAGNOLIA (Mississippi Alliance for Gaining New Opportunities Through Library Information Access) is a statewide consortium funded by the Mississippi Legislature. Since 1997, it has provided online databases for publicly funded K-12 schools, public libraries, community colleges, and university libraries in Mississippi. http://library.msstate.edu/magnolia/index.html