ELDORADO

ELDORADO – a renewed system of national library services
In line with the tender contract, the new service dubbed ELDORADO, to be launched at the end of October, may well become a factor significantly influencing the future of not only National Széchényi Library but also of the entire Hungarian library system. It may also function as a sort of break point for the Hungarian library community as a whole.

ELDORADO, the Hungarian abbreviation for the National System, Database and Document Library of Electronic Document Supply (ELektronikus Dokumentumküldés Országos Rendszere, Adatbázisa és DOkumentumtára) has the following main objectives: providing digital content in a legitimate way, the ”resuscitation” of publications lying on the shelves of libraries or out of circulation in a renewed legal environment adjusting itself to the challenges of a digital society. The efficiency of implementation is guaranteed by a close cooperation between customer (National Széchényi Library) and vendor (Monguz Ltd.) and by the active involvement of related partner libraries and other members of the sector (publishing houses, booksellers, CRMs, government agencies responsible for copyright protection, etc.).

ELDORADO and users
By a complex system of services, ELDORADO addresses a wide range of users. The aim of ELDORADO is to provide digital copies of documents with various copyright statuses on a ”one-stop-shop”, ”on demand” basis. This concept also suggests that the service focuses on out-of-commerce publications which are practically impossible for users to buy.
Digital copy supply can be ordered by both private persons and business customers. Depending on user’s authorization, permits issued by those with an authorization and possibilities of use worded in legal regulations, services range from search (in catalogue or full-text search) via online reading and e-lending to value-added services.

By including e-lending among its services, ELDORADO decided to give an answer, corresponding to the Hungarian status quo, to a state-of-the-art question which has been in the focus of fierce professional debates for quite some time.
The concept is that the conditions of lending e-publications could be set by those authorized on the surface promoting an effective management of licenses.

ELDORADO and libraries
ELDORADO is a joint service of the Hungarian library community. One of the main advantages of the system is that it provides infrastructure for partner libraries by way of supporting and standardizing processes of digital copy supply including the process of legitimization.

The majority of ELDORADO users might be libraries which require infrastructure for digitizing, including workflow management service for activities related to digitizing, the use of technical infrastructure or the ”liberation” of even copyright-protected content in order to be able to provide the material for a wide circle of users (copyright infrastructure service).

ELDORADO and sector members
The main goal of ELDORADO is to intervene in a manner that boosts the market and, at the same time, takes into consideration aspects of economy.
ELDORADO’s aim is to provide digital content legitimately and to take into account the interests of authorized parties by all means. In line with this, authorized parties or their legal representatives can determine themselves in which construction, under which tariff package they want to provide the given document via the system, if they wish to provide it at all.
In order to make legitimization as automatic as possible, so that the system could render it with a minimum of human intervention, there is a need for ELDORADO compatible, interoperable and, last but not least, up-to-date registers of legal data. To create a system like that, we have partners such as organizations responsible for copyright ownership management as well as the competent administrative bodies.

By including Hungarian digitizing projects into one single system, ELDORADO may become a service of national authority and this can boost the efficient use of resources of the Hungarian library community and can also contribute to maintaining Hungary’s national cultural heritage.  Doing all this as an additional bonus of a modern service model, fine-tuned to serve customer demands and carried out in close cooperation with our partners.