The National Library of Greece has made its entire archive available online, according to a report in Athens daily, Kathimerini.
In total there are some 200 million items available in the digital collection with 80 million available to all visitors to the website (www.nlg.gr) and the remainder available to registered users.
In an interview with Mariana Megevand, Dr Michalis Gerolimos, Systems and E-resources Librarian and coordinator of the whole project, said: "What we are interested in are the users, and how we can provide them with exactly what they are looking for. We are currently working on enriching the list of remote-access resources and simplifying the whole process of granting access. If somebody is abroad and can’t physically come to the NLG to ask for remote access, we will do everything in our power to help that person."
As well as providing access to its own resources, the Library is developing links with other open resources. Dr. Gerolimos said: "We wanted to centralize access to all the available resources, not just the ones provided by the NLG; if an open resource is trustworthy, relevant and serious, the NLG will display it in the search results."
The NLG is the first library in Greece to make its digital resources available in this way. Although registration has to be done in person, the Library is working to make the process more accesible to those outside of Greece who wish to take advantage of this valuable resource.