Η μετεξέλιξη της βιβλιογραφικής βάσης δεδομένων του Εθνικού Αρχείου Διδακτορικών Διατριβών του Εθνικού Κέντρου Τεκμηρίωσης σε ψηφιακή βιβλιοθήκη: ιστορία – προβλήματα – προοπτικές

The scope of this work is to show the evolution of the bibliographic database of the Hellenic National Archive of Theses of the National Documentation Centre to digital library. We make a throwback and evaluation of the project and the evolution of the library with respect to the new technologies. During this process, we highlight the problems, questions that emerge to the new digital reality and also the prospects of the evolution and development of the project. The National Documentation Centre (NDC), is the suitable organization by the law 1566/1985 for collecting the theses that have been elaborated by the Greek researchers in Creek Universities and the theses that have been elaborated by the Creek researchers in Foreign Universities. In 1986, in conjunction with the creation of the archive in printed form, the bibliographic database of the Hellenic National Archive of Theses was also created. The software that have been used for this purpose was the (ABEKT - third edition) and the equipment that was responsible for the provision of the database was the mainframe computer "Hermes" that started working for the first time as a provider of electronic information in 1986. "Hermes " worked with success from 1986 until 1999. The big innovation starts when the NDC decides, in order to have better services for the researchers and the users, to digitize the collection of the theses. The project starts in July 1998 and finishes in December 1999. This is the time for the big changes. The software ABEKT is in the fifth edition and works in Windows environment, implements UNIMARC, UNIMARC Authorities and ISO 2709. It is the time when "Hermes" is abolished and all the bibliographic databases of the NDC are provided with the protocol 119.50. The bibliographic database of the theses constitutes now a WEB database linked with the full text of the theses so we have a digital library of theses (2.000.000 digitized pages and that was the biggest project in Europe at that time). At this new stage we have various problems such as the security of the network and the security of the digital material, the control of the access to the digital content and also the selection of policy or policies concerning the availability of the digital content, questions that demand further investigation. Specifically, while the content of the theses and the technologies to provide them exist, the availability is limited by the absence of decisions concerning the use of policies. We will suggest some alternatives policies taking into account some criteria about the policies: • To be acceptable from all the people (Researchers, Universities, NDC e.g.). • To conform to the current legislation. • To be compatible with the common practice. We will try to analyze these questions and to make suggestions about the solutions of these problems, especially solutions about the policies concerning the availability of the digital material.