Ελληνικός Συλλογικός Κατάλογος - Εξελίξεις και προοπτικές

The creation of a Physical Union Catalogue constitutes a big technical challenge and simultaneously a challenge for the qualitative upgrade of the services provided by the Hellenic Academic Libraries. The qualitative upgrade consists of the unification of the existing electronic catalogues and the creation of an Interlibrary Lending System for the members of Hellenic Academic Libraries Network. The inhomogeneity of the information systems that we meet in the field of the Hellenic Academic Libraries constituted the most difficult issue in the implementation of Physical Union Catalogue. Nevertheless, the coordinated efforts of the Central Team of the Union Catalogue and the supporting firm have yielded important results. The experimental base of Collective List is currently consisted of 9 (out of 37) collections. The number of records exceeds the 450.000 (as on 10/7/2005), and the prospect is to incorporate at least 20 libraries until the end of year with more than one million records originated from 5 different systems. This paper intends to inform on the stages that are followed for the incorporation of a collection and presents the conclusions that are coming out. Moreover the activities that have been undertaken aiming at the creation of a collaboration network between the academic libraries are presented. Indicatively the following are reported: the definition of persons in charge per institution, the creation of an electronic forum for specialised Discussion Groups and the definition of Permanent Committees for Descriptive and Subject Cataloguing. The final objective remains the maximisation of the level of quality of the offered services in the libraries and in the final user