Zadar Public Library

[bookdrop outside Gradska knjižnica Zadar - City Library of Zadar]


16 March, 2010


(Day 3)


This was the only public library which we visited on our trip. It was a shining example of what a library can do and be for a community. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by the (now familiar) Mladen Masar. We walked through the library to a meeting room where we watched a powerpoint presentation on the library's history. 
It was founded over 60 years ago, but has been destroyed, rebuilt, and remodeled since then. There are several branches as well as a bookmobile and delivery service. 
Mladen described the library organization and the many community events which it sponsors. There have been substantial efforts to market this library, which have paid off. This library appears to enjoy a leadership standing in the Zadar community. It is a "model library" for Croatia, and works to teach other libraries in Croatia how to improve their services. 


The services of the library are free, but a borrowing card has a modest annual fee. There are currently 17,000 card holders. Only about 50% of the library's funding comes from the city. The other half comes from the federal government and even the EU. That's different. 


I was impressed with the shiny newness and offerings. I was curious about policy-level decisions in this library. How does collection development work? What kind of guidelines are in place, and what kind of priorities are made? How balanced is the collection? Considering the library sustained some (relatively minor compared to other libraries) damage during the Homeland War, were there any "deaccession issues"? 


We all receive 126-page Annual Reports. Our instructor's photo (Marta Deyrup) is on page 102. 


http://www.gkzd.hr/onama_en.php

Zadar Research Library

[SLIM students about to visit the Zadar Research Library and State Archive]

16 March, 2010

(Day 3)

Željka Aleksić has worked at this library for 20 years and was our energetic guide for our visit. She gave us a history of the library, the way it is organized and how it is used by the public, and showed us all over the facility. We saw the reading room, the closed stacks, and several important holdings. We learned of that this library is linked to German catalogs, which facilitates ILLs. There are approximately 1 million items, but only a fraction (1/5 or 1/4) are in the database. This library also holds two exhibits per year. We also got to meet a bust of the wealthy Venetian founder. 
Of interested me most here were the mini lectures down in the basement on various rare and important materials. 
It was fascinating to see these materials which related to Croatian history.  A 16th century map of Zadar and one showing the Turkish border outside the city walls were both intriguing. Especially as these maps were verifying some of the things that Mladen had told us the day before. 
My favorite was the incunabulum "Judita", which was written by Marko 
Marulić in the early 16th century. I would have loved to look at it more closely! This is one of the first works written in the Croatian dialect and there are only two copies in all of Croatia. It kind of made me uncomfortable that our host was handling these materials without gloves.
Later we see a statue of this "Father of Croatian Literature" in Split. 
  
Željka also told us that this library was hit and damaged during the Homeland War. Approximately 100 books were destroyed, and the brand-new computers and server. It cost so much to replace, that library development stopped for five years. 


http://www.zkzd.hr/pocetna.php?jezik=en

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marko_Maruli%C4%87

                        

University of Zadar lectures and library tour

[SLIM students ascending stairs of building which houses the University of Zadar library]

16 March, 2010

(Day 3)

We begin our day at an administrative building for the University of Zadar. We sit in a small conference room and listen to a lecture from Robert Lončarić, who is a professor of geography, and then Maja Kolega, who works in the international affairs office for the univeristy. 

Professor Lončarić gave us a lot of detail about the basic geography of Croatia. He mentioned the state parks. Then he gave a lengthy history of "Croatia". There was a lot to take in. The Slavs didn't even arrive in this area until the 8th century. He says they had the same language until 1400 (or so). 

He said "all Slavs", which sounds pretty interesting. That's a big language group and a long time ago. Funny, because I have so many stories of people in Croatia throwing fits over minor language differences between Croatian and Serbian and Bosnian. These things are obviously rooted in political conflict. So I guess you can decide about your language (and culture) based on your goal at hand and change it whenever it is expedient?

It reminds me of a (not very funny) joke:

What's the difference between a language and a dialect? 

A language has a flag. 

For brevity's sake, he ran through various permutations of Croatia over the centuries -  short-lived kingdoms, Hungarians, the Anjou dynasty, the Venetian Republic, The Austrian Empire, Hapsburg, Ottoman Empire, other short-lived kingdoms, Yugoslavia, and now just Croatia. 

Of all these versions of Croatia, the biggest one is always held up as "Croatia" and every time some version gets smaller, it is mentioned. 

I'm not sure what I think about that. 

Maja Kolega gave us information about the university's history, its organization, and how it is working toward standardization with other European universities. She told us a bit about the new university library which is in the works. 

Then we went to the university library. Marijana Tomić was our guide. She is working on her PhD and is a research assistant in the LIS department.  The library seems small (it holds 100,000 titles). I know many departments have their own libraries, so this may be one reason for it. Also the stacks are closed, so you don't get that sense of how big/many volumes the library has when visiting. 

One of the librarians told us that there is a joint catalog, but that software problems are making it hard to share records with other libraries. As we crowded around her in her small office, I was struck by how understanding we were (as a group) of her problems. A librarian is a librarian. You could see a hint of relief in her face when we offered our sympathetic comments. 

http://www.unizd.hr/