The Library plays a leading role in the “Aegean Ark” pilot project for a virtual library in the Greek Archipelago funded by the General Secretariat of Research and Technology under the auspices of the University of the Aegean Library. The overall objective was to create a scale model for a network of prototype forms of organised storage for cultural-related documentation on or originating from the Greek Archipelago. The prototypes will operate under a common set of classification and research codes as well as electronic support for the storage and research in the documentation. The project’s ultimate goal was to provide solutions to technical and organisational problems which such a network entails and to design standardised solutions within a pilot module, enabling a multiple re-application for the gradual coverage of the entire target field. The Project was directed by Professor Costas Man. Sophoulis in cooperation with Associate Professor Sotiris Htouris.

The pilot module of the network was based on information drawn from the University of the Aegean Library, as a technical and administrative base, the «Korai» Library of Chios, the Historic Archives of Samos, the Archaeological Museum of Samos and the Laboratory of Cultural Technology of the Department of Social Anthropology (University of the Aegean). Each of the network «nodes» was an example of the form and content that was suitable for its respective category. More specifically, the Lab of Cultural Technology was an active unit for the collection and organisation of scattered cultural documentation (music, dance, folklore material, audio-visual material etc.), whose mission was to create «archives» and related databases for material which had not yet been stored in the respective info points.

The project was completed over a three-year period (September 1995-September 1998).