BIBLIONET books-in-print database which provides information on new book publications in Greece, is now available exclusively via the National Documentation Centre’s (EKT) cloud infrastructure. As part of its collaboration with the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, EKT has undertaken the hosting, technical support and availability of its Data Centre and cloud infrastructure. Through this collaboration, services are being modernised, while the use of this valuable database by publishers, libraries and the wider audience is being expanded. Since March 2015 BIBLIONET has been available via the ‘Argo’ portal EKT (http://argo.ekt.gr) making it the most usable of the country’s libraries. To achieve this, EKT implements an innovative, dynamic and continuous conversion of BIBLIONET’s catalogues (UNIMARC). As a result, the country’s library community now has at its disposal a valuable tool with rich and reliable content, which enables the systematic and economical use of resources and time when cataloguing. In addition, through its openABEKT service (www.openabekt.gr), EKT has expanded its use of book covers stored in the BIBLIONET database, which makes library catalogues more attractive to and useful for the public, and promotes the country’s publishing.
BIBLIONET, launched in 1998, now has over 200,000 titles published in Greece. It includes full bibliographic details (such as title, author, publisher, physical description, summary, ISBN, taxonomy code etc), commercial information (such as price and availability), cover photograph and biographical notes, author’s photograph and list of work. The database aids the online search of more than 60 bookshops in Greece.
By depositing books with BIBLIONET, publishers render content immediately visible even before the book reaches the bookshop, and within a few days the book is given a Dewey decimal number.
The two institutes, the National Documentation Centre and the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, work closely together to further improve BIBLIONET, incorporating modern technologies and tools that enable the delivery of innovative services for publishers, booksellers, libraries and readers.
