Strengthening Modern Greek Collections

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The University of Crete Library

Michael Tzekakis,
Librarian of the University of Crete

The University of Crete was founded in 1972, but it accepted its first students in the academic year of 1977-1978. It is located in two towns, Hiracleion and Rethymnon, that are some 60 miles apart. The departments of Medicine, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science and Mathematics operate in Hiracleion, while the departments of History and Archaeology, Philology and Literature, Philosophy, Sociology, Economics, Psychology and Education operate in Rethymnon.

The University itself enjoys a good reputation throughout Greece, enrolling its approximately 7000 students from all parts of the countrv.

The University Library started its operation in 1997.

The library in Rethymnon has recently moved to its new library building which covers an area of 6000 sq. m.. It is an impressive building well designed and adequately covering the library's current needs.

THE COLLECTIONS

The library numbers about 300,000 volumes in Rethymnon and about 100,000 volumes in Hiracleion. It also subscribes to about 1800 titles of periodicals of which 1300 are published outside Greece.

The collections of the library in Rethymnon are considered to be ones of the most comprehensive and strongest collections in the country in the area of humanities and social science. They are particularly strong in Greek language 19th century and early 20th century material. A number of famous private collections, like Prof. Orlandos Collection, Prof I. Kalitsounakis Collection, Prof. D. Kalitsounakis Collection, Pantelis Prevelakis Collection and archive etc have been donated and they have given an enormous strength to the library resources. The library is using the Library of Congress classification, AACRH, the Library of Congress Subject Headings and US MARC as its main cataloguing standards.

THE AUTOMATION TEAM

The library has established one of the most efficient library automation teams in the country. They have created an integrated library system called PTOLEMAIOS II. It is one of the most popular systems among Greek libraries and supports bibliographic data bases in US MARC format, which cover about 65 % of the countries library records.

ELECTRONIC RESOURCES

The library makes accessible for its patrons a number of electronic resources and data bases such as EBSCO ELITE, OCLC FIRST SEARCH, etc either on line or in CD-ROM databases.

THE LIBRARY WEB PAGES

A detailed description of the library, its collections, its electronic resources and services is given in the University of Crete WEB pages (www.hbhuoc.gr). The library catalogues and other data bases available are accessible through the library's WEB pages in aforementioned address.

THE ELECTRONIC LIBRARY CATALOGUE

The library catalogue includes information relevant to all printed material, manuscripts computer files maps, audiovisual material housed in all library units. The electronic library catalogue is available in two versions : LA text based version which may be used from any type of terminal (userid = library). 2.A Web version which may be used through the Web browsers Netscape or Explorer. The Web version is based on the Z39.50 protocol. Both versions are available in Greek and in English. The information that OPAC supplies the end-user is not only about the bibliographic data, but also about, item information.

NETWORKING

The library is a member of the Greek Academic Libraries Network.

PROJECTS IN WHICH THE UNIVERSITY OF CRETE LIBRARY IS INVOLVED

The library is involved in the following projects:

HELEN

HELEN is a program funded by the European Union and carried out by the University of Crete Library, the King's College Library in London and the Computing Center of the University of Bradford in England. Its main product is a software that allows libraries who use the Latin or the Greek alphabet to exchange bibliographic records by converting the bibliographic records originally created in Greek language into Latin form and vice verse. This product can become extremely useful in cases that libraries in the U.S. acquiring Greek language material would like to receive USMARC bibliographic records for material originally catalogued in a Greek library using US.MARC as their cataloguing standard. A demonstration of this program will be shown during the Conference.

RETROSPECTIVE CATALOGUING FOR THE LIBRARY OF THE GREEK PARLIAMENT

The Library of the Greek Parliament possesses one of the most important and most comprehensive collections in Greece with approximately 1,000,000 volumes. The bulk of the material is in the Greek language. The University of Crete Library is the main partner for the retrospective cataloguing program of this library as a part a broader project aiming in its modernization.

SCHOOL LIBRARIES PROGRAM

The University of Crete Library has been appointed by the Ministry of Education as the agent responsible for establishing and organizing school libraries in 32 schools of secondary education situated in the area of Crete.