Just before the Ex Libris Users of North America (ELUNA) meeting May 6—8 in Richmond, Ex Libris announced the general availability of its bX article recommendation service. The service takes its cues from "Web 2.0—type" applications, offering related article suggestions based on aggregate usage data collected from participating institutions that already use Ex Libris's SFX link resolver, according to the company. "It's Amazon meets JSTOR," commented Endrina Tay, a technical services librarian at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, on her Twitter account from the ELUNA meeting.

Prior to the product's launch on May 5, bX was in beta tests at 20 research institutions worldwide, from which the initial article usage data was collected. As Ex Libris adds more institutions to the service, the bX service stands to increase the range of topics and articles on which it can supply further research suggestions.

For subscribing institutions, article recommendations will appear through the standard SFX interface but can also be integrated into other web services via the bX API, returning results in XML, RSS, and Atom formats.

Coinciding with the ELUNA conference and the release of bX, Ex Libris also announced the founding of two new blogs: "Initiatives" dedicated to product-related posts and service innovations, and "Commentary," a more general forum for longtime industry executive and current president of Ex Libris North America Carl Grant.