A new era for Greek libraries: EKT introduces the upgraded OpenABEKT

The National Documentation and Electronic Content Center (EKT) is upgrading its flagship cloud service, OpenABEKT, making catalog and library operations management even simpler and more efficient for users. The new, user-friendly interface—developed in collaboration with the Institute of Computer Science of FORTH—integrates advanced technological standards, ensuring that Greek libraries now have a modern tool for their digital transformation.

The upgraded OpenABEKT (www.openabekt.gr) responds to the evolving needs of libraries by offering enhanced maintenance and scalability capabilities. EKT, which has been consistently supporting Greek libraries for more than three decades, provides a comprehensive service aimed at organizations in education, research, science, culture, and public administration, strengthening collaboration among them.

With the goal of improving daily operations and enabling more efficient workflow management, EKT has upgraded the “Workflows and Operations” environment of the OpenABEKT service by introducing the new WorkFun+. This application allows libraries to manage copies, member catalogs, transactions, and statistical data.

In this renewed environment, certified users can take advantage of both existing features and new functionalities that enhance the organization of their work. Indicative new features available to each library include:

• Role Differentiation: Separation of users into Manager (with expanded overall management responsibilities) and Librarian.
• Advanced Statistics: Extraction of useful statistical data with multiple filters and customizable categories.
• Targeted Communication: Mass and targeted email communication with library members, along with full tracking of communication history per transaction.
• Data Optimization: Enrichment of existing fields to support daily work and prevent errors.

WorkFun+ has already been pilot-tested by libraries, whose feedback led to further improvements. The transition to this new application is part of EKT’s long-term strategy to provide comprehensive, high-standard solutions. With a steady commitment to innovation, EKT continues to offer a knowledge management infrastructure that reduces administrative costs and allows libraries to focus on highlighting their content and providing modern services to readers.

OpenABEKT: A modern service for catalog and library management

Since 1987, EKT has systematically monitored the needs of Greek libraries and provided modern solutions, contributing decisively to the broad dissemination of knowledge. The integrated OpenABEKT cloud service (www.openabekt.gr) for catalog and library management is the evolution of the ABEKT software (EKT Library Automation), a flagship EKT service that played a key role in the digital transition of Greek libraries.

Since 2017, OpenABEKT has been offered as an online Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, serving a wide network of organizations such as municipal libraries, school libraries, universities, research centers, museums, cultural organizations, hospitals, and public administration bodies (with more than 175 active agreements). The OpenABEKT Union Catalogue provides direct access to the content of all participating libraries, with more than 3,800,000 records, at: https://catalogue.openabekt.gr.

The OpenABEKT service consists of three interoperable environments:

• “Catalog” environment: Designed for certified users of each organization, supporting documentation (cataloging) and collection/content management.
• “Workflows and Operations” environment: Accessible to authorized users, supporting tasks related to member management, transactions, ordering copies and issues, sending notifications, and generating reports and statistics.
• “Discovery” environment: Publicly accessible, presenting all available collections of each organization to users.

The content of all three environments feeds into the OpenABEKT Union Catalogue, which aggregates, indexes, and presents in real time the records of all participating organizations, along with item-level information, in a unified interface. The Union Catalogue enables unified searching using multiple criteria and filters. At the same time, participating libraries can showcase their content and benefit from data exchange services that significantly reduce the time and cost of original cataloging.

Over time, more than 2,700 libraries have adopted various versions of ABEKT and OpenABEKT, highlighting EKT as the organization with the greatest expertise in providing services to libraries in Greece.