OSCE Mission to Montenegro supports digitization of Library of Parliament for joining Co-operative Online Bibliographic System and Services

The Montenegrin Library of Parliament, with the support of the OSCE Mission to Montenegro, digitally catalogued its collection, enabling it to join the shared bibliographic database of the Co-operative Online Bibliographic System and Services, known as the COBISS Platform.

The digitization followed an agreement in 2003 for COBISS to provide a free exchange of bibliographic records from the autonomous library information systems of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Slovenia and Serbia.

In June and July 2021, the Mission engaged a local expert on creating library records to create bibliographic records of the Parliament's Library on the shared bibliographic database of Montenegro COBIB.CG, which is part of COBISS platform. The expert also linked the Library's online catalogue with additional titles from topic areas such as world politics, international relations, the European Union, the history of Montenegro, law and gender equality. The Parliament's Library is now available and searchable by the public as well as members of parliament and staff via the online catalogue in COBISS.

Jelisaveta Blagojević, Head of the Library and Documentation Centre and Archive, said that it is now possible to search over 2,000 titles from the Library of the Parliament collection. 'Searches can be conducted on serial publications such as the Official Gazettes from 1945 to 2019, stenographic notes from the sittings of the Parliament of Montenegro from 1946 to 2018, issues of the magazine 'Historical Records' from 1948 to 2019,' said Blagojević.

The Parliament's updated bibliographic database will contribute to regional co-operation and facilitate the exchange of publications between parliaments.