Chicago, July 8, 2000—TheLibraryPlace.com, the first comprehensive digital community and marketplace offering a wide variety of products and services for public, school and academic libraries, premiered today at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in Chicago. theLibraryPlace.com, which is located at booth #4808 at the conference, has also named Paul Sybrowsky, the former chief executive officer at Bibliostat.com, as its President.

TheLibraryPlace.com plans to offer its customers a wide variety of products and services – from books, music and movies to furniture, computers and office supplies - as part of a virtual marketplace. The internet portal also provides a mix of free online services and information, including industry news, career postings and new product information, as well as premium paid services designed to meet the specific needs of librarians.

"By offering library professionals a comprehensive source of industry information and advanced library tools, including Title Source™II and the Bibliostat family of library solutions, we are confident that theLibraryPlace.com will become the industry’s new home on the Internet," said Sybrowksy. "We are very proud to be introducing theLibraryPlace.com at the ALA Conference, and we hope to get a tremendous amount of feedback from attendees as we grow the site."

As part of its launch, theLibraryPlace.com will conduct daily surveys of conference attendees from July 8 – 11 on a variety of industry issues. Responses will be tabulated on the web site and posted on a message board in theLibraryPlace.com’s meeting booth #3810. Surveyed attendees will have an opportunity to win an e-book reader during two daily drawings at the company’s booth.

TheLibraryPlace.com is a comprehensive Internet resource for the library community and is the first Internet portal launched by Informata.com, a new business-to-business e-commerce venture that will distribute electronic content, license database services and applications, and create Internet portals hosting services tailored to customers such as libraries, educational institutions and traditional and Internet retailers.