Eureka! Institutional Repository

The development of technology has helped and continues to help libraries offer more effective services to their users and has also contributed to their fast and easy service. Many of those services and librarian tasks have been converted from hand-written and complicated to neat and easy to use online information systems. This way, the professional librarian can control the material and the tasks easier as well as provide the user with high quality information very quickly. Taking into consideration the immense financial problems and the insufficient funds that Greek libraries have to face, innovative ways had to be discovered to cover the libraries’ needs for following all the users’ requirements as well as the time period’s demands. This dissertation’s goal is to present and recommend a new solution to stagnation and promote another way of enriching library collections, based on mutual assistance. Thus, the idea of creating this website was born. Based on Drupal 7 and the services that it provides, it is certain that it will help libraries, through mutual assistance and cooperation, so they can exchange needful material without cost. The general idea behind this website is inspired by the various donations from many users to their local libraries. Although, the truth is that this donated material is rarely useful and is actually used in the library collection. This way, every year, a very big number of library material goes to waste. With this website, this material, instead of going to waste, it can be posted on the website in a way that if one library in another location wants it, they can get it easy, fast and most importantly for free. The only cost that will take part in the exchange will be the transportation costs. There has to be an agreement between the transmitter and the receiver as the website is not involved with the transportation costs. In addition, book withdrawals can play a very important role as this material can be useful and wanted by other libraries. A big part of these withdrawals are well maintained material that can be used perfectly but due to each library’s policy they have to be removed from the main collection. But that doesn’t mean that this material is useless. This function can help libraries get rid of this unwanted material but at the same time enrich another library’s collection with new and useful additions to their collection which they couldn’t acquire otherwise due to financial problems.