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Union catalogue of National Library Service (SBN)

The OPAC SBN allows readers to search the union catalogue of the National Library Service (SBN).

The  National Library Service (SBN) is the network of Italian libraries promoted by the Ministry of Culture in cooperation with the Regions and the Universities, with the coordination of the Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian libraries and for bibliographic information (ICCU). The number of participating libraries increaeses constantly and the network gathers universities, academies, local, national, public anc private institutions.

The digital core of the SBN catalogue, called the SBN Index, contains:
  • descriptions of documents acquired from SBN libraries starting from the '90s or since single libraries entered the SBN;
  • descriptions "book in hand" of documents of XVI - XX centuries
  • descriptions obtained from catalogues on paper previous to 1990
The OPAC SBN database is updated weekly.

Through the OPAC SBN it is possible to:
  • identify documents of interest;
  • find libraries owning these documents and access information on single libraries;
  • access local catalogues for further information on document availability;
  • access the online loan or reproduction services in case the library joins the SBN ILL system;
  • access the "authority records", controlled records finalized to guarantee the uniqueness of some access points of the catalogue; currently the records related to a portion of the "authors" file are present and searchable.

Searches on the whole SBN catalogue are of three types:
  • Simple search, showing bibliographical records containg words matching those selected by users in the following fields: author, title, subject and Dewey class description)
  • Advanced search
All searches can be further refined.

The 'Other Catalogues' module allows users to launch searches in other Italian and foreign catalogues, thanks to the Z39.50 protocol. Some catalogues ("Multicatalog search"), can be searched directly, others can be accessed by users through the "Custom search".

The Services module allows users:
  • to access the ILL SBN service for inter-library loan and document delivery;
  • to browse the list of the SBN Nodes, with related libraries;
  • to recap the searches made during a navigation session.

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