The Municipalities of Thessaloniki, Thermi, Pavlou Mela, Kalamaria and 32 libraries participate in the metropolitan library.
The first metropolitan library created in Thessalonikiunder the interlibrary loan “umbrella” with the name “Thess-book”. About 500,000 books are available for loan, within the common network that the Municipalities of Thessaloniki, Thermis, Pavlou Mela, Kalamaria and 32 libraries – 21 central and their branches, 9 children, 1 university and one private educational institution.
The services that will be offered by the interlibrary loan network “Thess-book” were presented by the heads of libraries, at an event at the Central Library of the Municipality of Thessaloniki.
«Thessaloniki is the first city in Greece to proceed with this action. It is not just interlibrary loan, it is a system that can be further developed, as it serves the citizen very well, who can do a joint search, see in which library there is what he is looking for and go east or west, or to the center“, Stated to APE-MPE the General Director of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, Maria Tataya. «The vision is to reach the metropolitan library, interlibrary loan is the first step to reach a single umbrella “, he pointed out, adding that” at the moment there are four municipalities of the urban complex, but others must come to reach the metropolitan , which can be developed up to the Region of Central Macedonia».
As he clarified, already “there is a lot of interest in getting others into this system just some do not yet have koha, the software that allows them to connect to this umbrella, which is free software, they just have to customize it to their own needs».
THE Municipality of Thessaloniki has in the network “Thess-book” 280,000 volumes, from its central library and 8 branch libraries, 4 children’s libraries, a school library and the dye shop spiritual center. The Municipality of Kalamaria has 84,162 volumes from the central and its 5 children’s libraries, while the Municipality of Thermi 20,000 volumes from the cultural center and library of Thermi and the 5 libraries of its branches and the Municipality of Pavlou Mela participates with 3 libraries in Stavroupoli, Polichni and Fruitfulness.
The Library of Information Center of the University of Macedonia participates with 96,751 volumes and the Library “Dimitris and Aliki Perroti” of the American School of Agriculture with 5300 volumes.
