New developments concerning MOKKA, the Hungarian National Shared Catalogue. Part 2. MOKKA and the member libraries

Abstract

The Hungarian National Shared Catalogue (MOKKA) is a database with three major tasks to fulfil. When it was launched its main mission was to provide a common pool of authentic bibliographic records for libraries to share. Since then, it has also become a valuable online tool for the general public when they try to locate books, audiovisual material, printed music and other online documents in Hungarian libraries. It contains the catalogue records of the Hungarian Electronic Library as well. Thirdly, as a result of a development to be implemented in the near future, MOKKA will become the bibliographic foundation of the National Document Delivery System replacing its present bibliographic database. This article summarizes how the relatively simple functional model of the database is supplemented with a duplicate check and conversion processes of data format, character sets, and often library specific transformations of local conventions to ensure a more or less coherent database. Another aim of the paper is to enhance the co-operation between the databases of MOKKA and its 31 contributing libraries by pinpointing the elements of submitted records that are especially important for the workings of the central mechanism and thus for the quality of the MOKKA database.