Thanks to Peter Scott picking this up in his Library Blog.

xRefer has just announced that it has changed its name to Credo Reference. The reason for the change? The press release says:

“While the former name spoke to one of the many benefits of our functionality, cross-linking across content from hundreds of quality titles from dozens of the best reference publishers, commented John Dove, Credo Reference CEO, “it was far from memorable to those who might hear it for the first time. This made it hard to pass along via word-of-mouth. Our new name speaks to one of the main challenges for online reference publishing, namely how to stand out from the confusing jumble of information and misinformation that today’s online information seeker encounters.

I agree that we will no longer have to explain to users what xRefer ‘means’ or how to pronounce it, but I am not sure that many will appreciate the roots of ‘Credo’ (Latin for ‘I believe’) . “Credo? Who’s he – one of the hobbits?” Or imagine what a dissatisfied user might call it by changing the first vowel to one later in the alphabet!

The new URL for the service is  http://www.credoreference.com/