Four books from ATON publishing house hosted by EKT's eBooks service

The online environment of the eBooks hosting service developed by the National Documentation Centre (EKT) was used by ATON publishing house to make four interesting publications that trace the history of books in Western civilization available for the general public. The online eBooks service, which mainly targets reputable scientific publishers, research institutions of the country, folklore institutions and cultural organisations, to date, hosts 11 publishing houses and offers its visitors access to the content of 39 books / monographs.

In addition to ATON publishing house, important scientific publishers, academic institutions and research institutions with rich interdisciplinary work such as the National Centre for Social Research, the Research Centre for the Humanities and the Laboratory of Applied Philosophy of NKUA have trusted the online eBooks service and provide open access to their content, supporting global knowledge sharing and making the results of their scientific research freely available to the public.

ATON publishing house was founded by Konstantinos Sp. Staiko, in Athens in 2010 continuing the publishing and typographical work of KOTINOS, the foundation of which dates back to 1989. The main subject of the publications, which are also published in English, is the history of books and libraries in Western Culture and issues related to the Greek book, from antiquity to the present day. ATON collaborates with foreign publishing houses such as Hes & de Graaf in the Netherlands and OAK KNOLL PRESS in Delaware, America, which are its exclusive representatives in Europe and America.

So far, from ATON’s catalogue, two publications are available for reading. They are the publications ‘Most Notable Greek Books of the 20th Century’ and ‘The Greek Editions of Aldus and this Greek Collaborators: (c. 1494-1515)’. The latter publication is also available in English and Italian.

‘The 700 Most Notable Greek Books of the 20th Century’

The volume ‘The 700 Most Notable Greek Books of the 20th Century’ was published in order to trace the expression of eminent representatives from the worlds of arts and letters in the 20th century, as reflected by their books. The books selected are mainly geared towards wider audiences rather than confined to the scientific community exclusively. Thematic sections include books on Archaeology and Architecture, Linguistics textbooks, books that

bear witness to the development of publishing activity during the 20th century, books that outline, study and shed light on individual aspects of our History, from antiquity to the present day, books pertaining to our folklore traditions and art, and books whose contents unfold during Byzantine and post-Byzantine times. Two chapters are dedicated to books of philosophical and philological content, indicative of the great cultivation of Philosophy and Philology during the 20th century.

‘The Greek Editions of Aldus and his Greek Collaborators: (c. 1494-1515)’

The publication ‘The Greek Editions of Aldus and his Greek Collaborators: (c. 1494-1515)’ which is available online in three languages (Greek, English and Italian) is dedicated to the memory of Aldus Manutius and highlights, among other things, the participation of his Greek collaborators in his titanic publishing work. We owe the rebirth and spread of Greek and Byzantine literature in the West to Aldo Manutius and his close Greek collaborators: M. Mousouros, D. Doukas, Ioustinos Decados and Ioannis Grigoropoulos. The Aldus’ publishing house, with the editing of these scholars, published monumental works such as the Complete Works of Aristotle and the Dialogues of Plato, but also the Comedies of Aristophanes and the Tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, as well as historical writings of Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon. This publication discusses Aldus' work on Greek typography and addresses the aesthetics of his publications.

EKT's collaboration with ATON publishing house and Konstantinos Sp. Staiko

The eBooks service is part of EKT's ePublishing platform for the online publication and hosting of electronic journals, conference proceedings and monographs/books. EKT, in the context of its co-operation with ATON publishing house, provides the necessary infrastructure for the hosting of the books published by the partner institution in the online environment of the eBooks service. ATON publishing house has the scientific supervision of the content of the available publications.

Aiming to highlight the history of books and libraries from antiquity to the present day, in 2019, EKT and the non-profit company ‘Kipos Filovivlon/Philobiblians’Garden’, the founder of which is Konstantinos Sp. Staikos, presented the public with the online encyclopedia ‘About Libraries – aboutlibraries.gr’.

The online encyclopedia ‘About Libraries’ (www.aboutlibraries.gr) is a space for original research and the collection of important and rare archival and other material, focusing on libraries and their history, the presentation of unique collections and personalities associated with libraries in East and West from antiquity to the present day. This digital site already includes more than 3,719 items in the Greek language, processed and documented, accompanied by useful bibliographic references and a rich visual collection (miniature manuscripts, woodcuts, engravings, lithographs, paintings, representations and photographic depictions of sculptures and architectural works, etc.).

Some of the most representative samples of the material hosted in the ‘About Libraries’ encyclopedia, were presented in a special exhibition of the non-profit company ‘Kipos Filovivlon/Philobiblians’Garden’ and EKT, which was held between 29/09 - 25/11/2022 at the ESIEA Library ‘Dimitris I. Pournaras’.

The project

The development of the ePublishing platform and related electronic publishing services began in 2007 and concern the open access publication, hosting and distribution of electronic journals (eJournals), conference proceedings (eProceedings) and monographs / books (eBooks). These services are constantly evolving for the benefit of publishers and users. Currently, the technological upgrade and expansion of ePublishing with new document actions is being carried out by EKT within the framework of the Project ‘National Information System for Research and Technology: Infrastructure for the Aggregation, Documentation and Dissemination of Digital Content ensuring interoperability, long-term preservation and open access’, which is being implemented under the Operational Programme ‘Public Sector Reform’ (NSRF 2014-2020) and is co-funded by the European Union - European Regional Development Fund and national resources. It is in this context, EKT's ePublishing platform is being upgraded and expanded to offer publishers new functionalities to facilitate their administrative tasks and users upgraded services for more efficient search and finding of digital material.