About Pergamos

Background information and policies

Pergamos had originally been developed as an integrated Digital Library System (DLS) for the uniform management, documentation, preservation and promotion of heterogeneous digital collections. Its development was incorporated into a single digital library strategy, implemented by the Libraries Computer Center (LCC) in the context of the project 'Enrichment and Upgrade of the University of Athens Library' of the 2nd EPEAEK (Scientific Director: Prof. M. Dermitzakis). The project envisioned the development, by the end of 2008, of ten (10) digital collections from libraries, archives or museums of the University of Athens.

LCC, through the development of Pergamos, has achieved its basic strategic goal: to bring the various collections together into a single digital library system and present them online in a uniform but flexible way. This objective safeguards the efficient management of collections and their emergence as integral parts of a central digital library, while providing adequate guarrantees to ensure their long-term viability.

The same logic has been successfully applied in the implementation of the projects "Digital Collection of the NKUA Historical Archive" and the "Digital Collection of the Psachos Music Library" of the Operational Program "Information Society", Measure 1.3: "Documentation, Evaluation and Enlightenment" Invitation 65 (Scientific Manager: Professor Michalis Dermitzakis). The digital collection of the Historical Archive was, in fact, the very first collection to be posted on Pergamos (December 2006).

Continuing in the same digital policy framework, we proceeded to design and implement the new "Pergamos", now in the form of an Institutional Repository (IR). The new platform was developed in the framework of the Act "Creation of a Unified Digital Repository Platform and Related Electronic  Information and Promotion Services for the NKUA  Library" (MIS code 304160) of the NSRF Digital Convergence 2007-2013 Operational Program of the European Union (the contractor was UniSystems, the development of the Institutional Repository / Digital Library software was carried out by Niovity, while the management, custody and documentation of the material made by the Library and Information Center/LIC of NKUA). In the context of the project, the LCC in cooperation with the LIC continued and expanded the original strategic choice, now implementing the concentration of not only the cultural collections of NKUA, but also the broader intellectual and research activity of the Foundation, into a unified  Digital Library and Institutional Repository platform.

Under the IR's new strategic policy, the LCC, in collaboration with the LIC, continues to substantially enrich and technically support Pergamos, providing guidance and digital services such as software maintenance, development of appropriate metadata, storage and retention of digital material, while simultaneously promoting and presenting them online, in line with contemporary techniques and practices. Therefore, "Pergamos" is considered to be a "Reliable Digital Repository", characterized by consistency and uniformity, which ensures the efficient management of digital collections and their sustainability over time.

Structure and Contents of the Repository

Pergamos comprises a large set of heterogeneous digital collections of cultural value, owned by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, as well as part of the research and educational production of the NKUA academic community, a collection that is constantly enriched. More specifically, Pergamos boasts of 20 collections of diverse content, covering almost the entire thematic range of NKUA's Schools, while the total number of digital items reaches approximately 1,000,000 digital objects.


In particular, Pergamos included the following collections by 2013:

  1. Digital Collection of NKUA's Historical Archive
  2. Folklore Archive and Museum Collection of the University of Athens
  3. Theatrical Collection
  4. Konstantinos A. Psachos Music Library Collection
  5. Manuscript Collection of the Byzantine and Modern Greek Philology
  6. Museum of Mineralogy and Petrology Collection
  7. Archive of the Greek Communities of Istanbul
  8. Maraslio Archive
  9. Collection of Published Election Results
  10. Collection of medical images
  11. Papyrus collection
  12. Collection of Accessible Texts


The following new collections have been or will be added soon in Pergamos' current instance:

  1. Collection of rare books
  2. Spyridon Lambros Archive
  3. Gray Literature Collection
  4. Collection of periodicals
  5. Collection of old fellowships
  6. Honorary Publications of the NKUA
  7. Conference Proceedings
  8. Collection of scientific publications, research and other material

Depending on its content, each collection may have an administrator or curator from the staff of respective NKUA units that are related to the collection (who are responsible for the content of the collection they curate). This ensures that compliance with the relevant guidelines or regulations that may govern or affect the content is achieved.

In this context, Pergamos, as the Institutional Repository of the NKUA, has the ability to host any material, whether digital or non-digital, that is either owned and associated with our Institution or produced by the NKUA academic community. In the same context, Pergamos and its administrators as well as the Library and Information Center, are not responsible for the content of material posted through self-deposit or in the context of enriching collections by their curators.

Pergamos offers a vast range of services to facilitate more efficient access to its content as well as easier management according to the needs of the visitor. Key services available to everyone are not only Material Search, Recovery and Display, but also Usage and Export of Results.

In addition to the general IR services, additional services are especially available for members of the NKUA academic community if the user logs into the repository through the Central User Accreditation Service with their codes. These extra services are:

  • Research material (pertaining to submitting publications, technical reports, ongoing research works and data sets)
  • e-deposit of material (pertaining to Gray Literature works),
  • Favorites and
  • My Searches

These services are exclusively personalized, depending on the user profile who logs into the IR and are not common to all, making the management of the material more flexible and more targeted to the needs of the certified user.

Standards and Effective Practices
Metadata

Metadata describe the main elements and contents of each item and allow for its identification, search, grouping and retrieval, as well as its link to other relevant or related items or collections. Metadata are generated either on predetermined forms, which vary according to the requirements of the material described, or by the creator himself when self-depositing the material in the IR, but in the case of Gray Literature works, metadata are also checked by the Library staff before being publicly approved and published. The Pergamos metadata are open to everyone through the repository's website, regardless of the potential access rules over the digital object.

Specifically in "Pergamos" the description of the digital material is based on the Dublin Core metadata standard while the description of the archive material isbased upon the ISAD (G) standard. In each case and depending on the needs of the material, additions have been made to the description of the material either with the Dublin Core (DC qualified schema) specifications or with fields of local use and importance. In addition, self-deposit forms (Gray Literature and Scientific Publications) are based on the metadata fields (Heal-Meta) proposed by the Hellenic Academic Libraries Link (HEAL-Link).

Open Data

Pergamos implements the OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) metadata harvesting protocol, which makes its content searchable by various international websites, harvesters and search engines that support the OAI protocol, in excess of the more or less well known internet search engins (like Google, Bing, etc).

In addition, Pergamos' metadata are compatible with the Europeana Data Model (EDM) standard for platform interoperability with the Europeanana European Digital Library.

Moreover, Pergamos supports an open REST / JSON API for third-party hardware interoperability.

The material hosted in the platform, is primarily freely available to the general public, since  "Pergamos" adopts open access policies (except for material which is either subject to restrictions on archival and copyright or its author has requested the imposition of spatial or temporal restrictions). However, precisely because of the openness and interoperability of Pergamos, the metadata of digital objects and the actual digital material are easier to locate and become more known on the Internet.

However, it is worth noting that, unless explicitly stated otherwise, access to the material (digital or not) contained in Pergamos and any use thereof (e.g. printing, storage, copying, etc.) is allowed exclusively for educational, research and private purposes, but not for commercial ones.

In addition, any use of the material contained in Pergamos, should be accompanied by a reference to its origin and its permanent electronic link in the platform (aka Permalink or Persistent URL), as well as to the creator of the original item in the Repository.

Personal data and Contact information

Pergamos uses cookies to provide a richer user experience to members of the NKUA Academic Community, through personalised services (provided only to successfully authenticated users). By using it, you also accept the use of cookies.

Personal data (such as names or creators or contributors) that may be entered into the platform in the context of self-deposit or documentation of items, are used exclusively for the correct interconnection between the digital object and its creators and contributors or for communicating with them if necessary.  Additional references to individuals, in the context of the metadata documentation process, are strictly related to interconnecting the documented item and its historical / cultural / research value. Only interconnection metadata are indexed and served by Pergamos on the Internet (and consequently become visible to all types of metadata harversters and search engines).

For more information on the NKUA privacy policy, please visit: https://en.uoa.gr/about_us/personal_data_protection_policy/

For any technical issues or questions that cannot be resolved in the "Help" section of Pergamos, you can open a support ticket on our Helpdesk  (make sure you select "Pergamos" as the Topic) or contact the Libraries Computer Center.

Introduction

"Pergamos" (named after the homonymous ancient Greek city of Asia Minor), is the Unified Institutional Repository / Digital Library Platform (UIRDLP) of the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). For simplicity reasons, hereafter, Pergamos will be also referred to as Institutional Repository (IR).

The current version of "Pergamos" was developed under Subproject 1: "Development of an Open Access Institutional Repository / Digital Library" of the Act entitled "Development of a unified Digital Repository Platform and related electronic information services for the Library of NKUA" (MIS code: 304160), of the Digital Convergence Operational Program.

The Pergamos platform includes or may include the following material types:

  • Digital Educational and Cultural Value Collections for the Academic Community
  • Graduate and Diploma Theses, Doctoral Dissertations
  • Rare digitized material that belongs to the Library & Information Center (LIC) or other organizational units of NKUA (e.g. old periodicals, books, honorary articles, proceedings of NKUA conferences, etc.)
  • Archives and private archive collections
  • Training material for students with disabilities 
  • Scientific publications and other research material

The purpose of "Pergamoς" is twofold: on the one hand it is used for the preservation, documentation and promotion of heterogeneous digital collections owned by the University of Athens and on the other it provides the necessary "space" for the systematic collection, organization, management and display  of the material produced by the scientific and intellectual activities of the academic community of the NKUA. The aforementioned collections, which are constantly updated by the LIC and other units, are primarily aimed at the academic community of the NKUA, but at the same time to other members of the Greek and international scientific, academic and research community by providing open access to the majority of their content. The thematic content is quite broad and relevant to all the disciplines of the NKUA Schools.