15/10/2007

The 16th Academic Libraries conference entitled "The human factor in the configuration of current and future library" was held from 1 to 3 October 2007 at the University of Piraeus. The Conference's aim was to exchange knowledge and experiences about improving libraries and showcasing their contribution to national development.

Librarians and IT experts attended the conference and presented their research work, studies, library software and tools to facilitate better library organisation and management. The conference covered issues relating to legislation, financial management, service evaluation, human resources, staff training and education, collaborations, common policies in implementing standards, intellectual property and other topics.

Executives from the Greek National Documentation Centre (EKT) who took part in the Conference talked about the Centre's experience in developing library systems and its collaboration with libraries. They also presented new scientific information services, development plans and options for collaboration in an open access environment.

EKT's library automation software system (ABEKT) was also presented, the progress noted in the already five editions, the main features, and the actions to support the system and collaboration with libraries. This is a software application developed from scratch by EKT to provide integrated library management and support dissemination of bibliographical data. It is used today by more than 2,000 educational and research institutes, public and private libraries, and other bodies in both Greece and Cyprus. It is the most widespread library automation software in Greece.

New scientific information services and in particular EKT's activities on digital repositories and online journals are following the global trend towards open access and free dissemination of the results of scientific research, particularly when it has been financed by public funds. In such actions, major emphasis is placed on the technical dimension of project implementation and in particular on issues such as IT infrastructure, data management and service deployment. The collaboration with academic libraries remains an important factor, which can be particularly beneficial for participating bodies and for the research community overall, thanks to the development of high quality, open-access services.

Source: EKT