Il catalogo SBN aperto al pubblico (OPAC)

About the OPAC SBN

The Catalogo SBN is the collective catalog of the Italian National Library Service (Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale, SBN), providing public access to the holdings of participating libraries. It includes bibliographic descriptions and locations for various document types, cataloged according to their specific characteristics:

• Antico: Printed monographs from the 15th century to 1830 (conventional limit for manual printing).
• Moderno: Monographs from 1831 onward and periodicals without date limits, including textual documents, sound recordings, videos, electronic archives, and other materials cataloged without specificity.
• Musica: Printed and manuscript notated music, as well as libretti.
• Grafica, Cartografia, Audiovisivi: Graphic materials, maps, and audiovisual documents.

While the management system (called Indice) remains reserved for library operations, the SBN catalog has been publicly accessible since 1997 via its OPAC (On-line Public Access Catalog). The OPAC provides user-friendly and structured search capabilities, enabling broad access to the catalog’s informational content and related services.

Technical Features

The OPAC SBN is built on a weekly-updated database derived from the Indice, designed to offer multiple access points—far exceeding those available in the management system. To ensure interoperability with other bibliographic systems, the OPAC adheres to the international standard Z39.50 (later ISO 23950), optimized for bibliographic information retrieval.

The current OPAC version is developed entirely using open-source software, including the Lucene/SOLR search and indexing engine, which ensures high-performance searches and "faceted" navigation of results. Bibliographic records are available in UNIMARC format (directly derived from the SBN Index) and, since 2015, in MARC21 format for viewing and export. Key conversion choices for MARC21 are documented here.

Z39.50 Access

Any Z39.50 client can connect to the OPAC SBN target. The Library of Congress provides a Z39.50 Gateway for this purpose. Some national and international meta-OPACs query the SBN OPAC by mapping their search fields to those of the ICCU’s web interfaces. Key technical details for Z39.50 access include:

• Profile: Bib-1 (details available here).

Contact

For further information, contact Maria Cristina Mataloni.