OPPORTUNITIES FOR CONSTRUCTING AN ONLINE CATALOGUE OF THE NATIONAL AND ACADEMIC LIBRARIES IN THE SOUTH EAST EUROPEAN REGION: A ROUND TABLE

 

A round table dedicated to the opportunities for constructing an online catalogue of the major libraries on the Balkans took place at the Conference (Mirror) Hall of the Sofia University (Feb 21, 2014). The meeting was organised by the NALIS Foundation and representatives of 16 institutions from 7 countries from the region took place in it, namely from: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia.  (See the programme here.) 

The event was opened by Prof. Ivan Ilchev, the Sofia University’s rector. Dr. Dincho Krastev presented the NALIS activities, projects, results, achievements and perspectives. After the break Christian Motovsky introduced the audience with the presentation of the Ex Libris Vice President and Sales Manager for Central and East Europe, dedicated to the corporate strategy of the company and the most modern library software products it offers. Then there was a discussion in which all the participants expressed quite a positive attitude to the idea of integrating bib information from the major Balkan libraries into a single online catalogue and to the plans how to do it. They spoke about the opportunities this would give their libraries also by integrating their digital collections.