An overview of RERO ILS, the open-source integrated library system developed in Switzerland on the Invenio framework, its features, and who uses it.
RERO ILS is an open-source integrated library system developed starting in 2017 by RERO, in collaboration with the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, intended to replace RERO's legacy proprietary library management software. It is built on Invenio, a digital library framework originally created at CERN, giving the system a research-grade, actively maintained technical foundation.
RERO, the organization behind the system, dates back to 1985 as a body managing IT resources for academic libraries in French-speaking Switzerland. On 29 April 2021 it was reconstituted as RERO+, a foundation of private law and public interest established by the Swiss cantons of Jura, Neuchatel, and Valais along with the city of Martigny, which now governs RERO ILS's ongoing development.
RERO ILS manages the full core workflow of a library, including document acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation and lending, and a public search and discovery interface, and it supports both standalone libraries and multi-library consortial networks operating on a shared instance.
The platform is multilingual by design, with interfaces available in French, German, Italian, and English, reflecting its primary deployment across public, school, and heritage libraries and library networks in Switzerland, while remaining open to adoption by libraries internationally.
RERO ILS is free and open source; there is no license fee to download, self-host, or modify the software, and its source code is maintained publicly for community contribution. A public test instance is available for institutions evaluating the system before committing to a migration.
Libraries seeking a managed deployment, data migration, or ongoing technical support typically work directly with RERO+ to arrange implementation and hosting terms, as pricing for managed services is not published and is handled on a case-by-case basis.
RERO ILS is a free, open-source integrated library system for managing acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation, and public discovery, built on the CERN-developed Invenio framework.
RERO ILS was developed starting in 2017 by RERO, in collaboration with the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, and is now governed by the RERO+ foundation.
Yes, RERO ILS is open source and free to download and self-host; managed hosting or support arrangements are negotiated separately with RERO+.
RERO ILS is used primarily by public, school, and heritage libraries and library networks in Switzerland, with interest from other libraries internationally.
RERO ILS is built on Invenio, a digital library software framework originally developed at CERN.
RERO ILS reached its first major release (v1.0.0) at the end of 2020, with the first real-world production library instance going live in June 2021.
RERO ILS's interface is available in French, German, Italian, and English.
RERO+, a foundation of private law and public interest established in April 2021 by the Swiss cantons of Jura, Neuchatel, and Valais and the city of Martigny, governs RERO ILS.