The National Collective Catalog of Scientific Journals (ESKEP) of the Greek scientific and technical libraries is a service that the National Documentation Centre (EKT, in Greek) develops, maintains and offers within its institutional scope.

This catalogue includes: (a) bibliographical data of scientific journals both in printed and electronic form, which are available in the collections of Greek libraries, and (b) each scientific journal title that is made available by these libraries.

The National Collective Catalogue of Scientific Journals, established in 1983, updates its information about new journals and libraries and enhances the quality and validity of its files on a daily basis. At the same time, given the importance and uniqueness of the ESKEP, the EKT strives to render search in and access to the catalogue’s information more user-friendly, embedding features from the latest information and communication technologies.

The catalogue enables you to do:

• Journal search: Searching for a journal in a catalogue can be done by using the full name of the journal, words from its title, ISSN, etc. When the results appear, the user can have a complete bibliographic record of the journal, information about the publisher, the country of publication, history record, etc., together with a list of the Greek libraries that have the journal in their collections along with information such as available issues and year.
• Library search: Searching libraries is possible by using the name of the library or city. Useful information is provided for each library, such as address, contact details, as well as whether a library is a member of the National Network of Scientific and Technological Libraries (EDETV).

The catalogue is further developed by gathering journal records from local catalogues of the participating libraries. Libraries regularly update the EKT regarding any changes in their collection information including changes in titles or acquisitions so that the union catalogue is kept up to date. Moreover, bibliographical records collected from the libraries are inspected for completeness and quality to ensure that the final records which appear in the ESKEP are valid and homogenous; while the information drawn from databases such as ISSN Portal, Ulrich’s Web etc. is cross-referenced and added to the records.

This catalogue is a suitable tool for every user who seeks to locate the libraries which include in their acquisitions a specific journal and the total number of the collections per library. The “Digital Location” information which is included in the bibliographical record of a digital journal assists the user to access online the complete text of the journal’s articles (provided the user or the concerned library has an active membership) or in the Table of Contents of the journal (information which is usually available online and free of charge by publishers).

The user can address the nearest member library of the EDETV network and order journal articles which are available in collections of other member libraries of the network and, by accessing the library webpage, they can be informed about the opening hours, the address, the management and staff contact details, etc.

Libraries can use the catalogue to refer their users to other libraries or to order online, on behalf of users, copies of journal articles owned by a EDETV network library if these are not available in their collection