Partners investigate national library systems in the Balkans

OCLC and IZUM, the Institute of Information Science in Slovenia, are investigating a partnership to develop national library information systems in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.

The partnership would integrate core products and services from both organisations to provide a management and information discovery environment for libraries within COBISS.Net, the network that connects autonomous COBISS (Co-operative Online Bibliographic System and Services) library information systems of different countries and their current research information systems.

OCLC and IZUM will look into ways to develop, localise and implement OCLC Web-scale Management Services and COBISS applications. They will also look at loading records from the union catalogues of participating countries into WorldCat and from WorldCat to the catalogues of the libraries within the COBISS.Net network, as well as ways to distribute OCLC products and services in the nine countries.