In an ideal and state-of-the-art collection all documents – old or new, print or electronic, part of the main or special collections, subscribed or owned by the library – are searchable on one common platform. In such an ideal collection full-text e-documents are accessible directly from the OPAC, and the full text of the documents can also be included in the search. Fortunately, we are not far from that ideal state IRL, either: although many libraries still have thousands of books with digitally unavailable metadata, they by no means neglect to incorporate their already existing electronic documents into one collection with a common search interface. The Library of the HAS is no exception.

This presentation aims at demonstrating - in a nutshell - the solutions and tools which are designed to integrate the print and digital sections of the collection. The library holds such treasures that are worth preserving and being made available in digital format, therefore all means that are employed to achieve this end may be of interest for those who are concerned about the fate of public collections in the 21st century, or simply would like to get swift and easy access to major, restricted, or hard-to-come-by documents.

Several solutions has been drawn up (or are under construction) in the Library of the HAS to accomplish this goal: MetaLib, which enables users to run simultaneous searches in several hand-picked databases with the help of pre-defined subject categories, or SFX, which provides context-sensitive links to available full text documents and other web-based resources.

In order to make the full text version of more and more documents available, and also so that more and more documents – because of their cultural or scientific value, or merely by user request – can be digitized and thus get into the digital circulatory system of the Library of the HAS, the REAL repository was created, which – at present – has three sub-collections, but can be extended any time. The REAL-OTKA contains and provides a search interface for the publications and reports funded by the OTKA program, the REAL-d the theses of the doctors of the Academy, and the REAL-EOD the books digitized by request in the framework of the Library’s EOD (eBooks on Demand) service.

The presentation seeks to focus on the devices that serve as the pillars of the digital service integration of the Library of the HAS, which best serve the purpose of making the already existing collections available in the possibly most ideal structure.