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Service description

Melinda is the National Metadata Repository and a service for libraries. Libraries catalog their materials in the shared data repository, from which this information can be utilised. Centralising the data saves work and cuts costs in libraries while enabling better customer service.

Melinda connects the participating libraries to a national production environment for bibliographic metadata. Library professionals get access to tools with which to participate in the production of the data for the shared metadata repository and to utilise the data in their local catalogue.

a collaborative environment for national cataloguing activities as well as a national metadata repository that is used to collate descriptive metadata on library materials. Participating libraries can use the shared repository to catalogue their materials and thus enable this information to be further utilised. This process helps the libraries decrease their workload and save costs, allowing them to focus on providing their patrons with even better services.

As a rule, Melinda contains all of the materials of its participating libraries. The theses, dissertations and electronic material packages included in Melinda have been catalogued by the libraries based on their individual policies and licensing terms.

Melinda’s operating model is cross-platform,which means the service has the same objectives and tasks regardless of the platform that it is run on. Any changes in Melinda’s technical platform will not affect its Melinda’s operating model is system independent.This means that the service has the same aims and tasks regardless of the current back end system. The development of technical platforms does not affect Melinda’s operating model.

Currently, the service and the union catalogue are built upon related metadata repository run on the Aleph integrated library system. Library patrons can search for information directly from the Melinda OPACon Melinda.

The service is expanding set to expand gradually

Melinda contains the Finnish National Bibliography as well as reference data about the materials in university libraries, most joint libraries and polytechnic libraries under the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Library of Parliament, the National Repository Library and the Library of Statistics. Among public libraries, the Tampere City Library - Pirkanmaa Regional Library and the Kokkola City Library - Regional Library have joined the service as pilot libraries. These pilot schemes have created practices for public libraries to join Melinda. Melinda will gradually become the is the direct descendant of LINDA, the union catalogue for university and joint libraries as well as certain special libraries. In addition to the libraries’ reference data, Melinda also contains the Finnish National Bibliography (Fennica). The National Metadata Repository Initiative helped Finnish university of applied sciences libraries to join Melinda in 2012–2014, and the first public libraries in 2015. Melinda is set to gradually become a shared metadata repository for all Finnish libraries.

As a rule, Melinda contains all materials of the participating libraries. However, the libraries have catalogued final theses and electronic material packages in accordance with their own practices. At the beginning of 2016, the database contained approximately nine million records. The development and expansion of the service is performed in the context of the National Metadata Repository project.

The service is based on the union catalogue

The ultimate goal of the service is to have each work or material be catalogued in the metadata repository only once, thus reducing the incidence of overlapping work.

The National Metadata Repository Initiative is responsible for the service’s development and expansion work.

From a union catalogue to a more comprehensive service

Melinda, as well as Melinda (and its predecessor, the union catalogue LINDA) , is the oldest online library network service offered provided by the National Library of Finland to the library network. It . The service is based on the automation of cataloguing commenced a cataloguing automation project that was initiated in the 1970s by the IT unit Unit of Finnish Research Libraries . The unit was a project of (TKAY). TKAY operated under the Ministry of Education and Culture from the 1970s to early until the beginning of the 1990s. The In 1993, the unit was annexed transferred to the National Library of Finland, then known as Helsinki University Library, in 1993. LINDA was opened for . The launch of the online information retrieval in 1993-94.system LINDA was carried out between 1993 and 1994.

Since Ever since its inception, the union joint catalogue has worked served as a

• A copy cataloguing source for record copy cataloguing
• search catalogue for customers
location tool for remote services.
• bibliographic records,
• An online information retrieval system for patrons,
• A locating tool for interlibrary loan services.