Structure of the Slovene libraries sector, collections, exhibitions, training, legislation and funding
The Slovene library information system comprises around 1,000 libraries, which successfully cover the whole country.
The
National and University Library (NUK) is both the national library of Slovenia and the main library of the University of Ljubljana (see also
University of Ljubljana Libraries). There are also three university libraries (
Maribor,
Nova Gorica and Primorska) and a further 51 academic or faculty libraries; 138 special libraries; 61 public libraries with 283 branches and nine mobile library services; and 700 school libraries. Libraries and their users enjoy free Internet access. The majority of academic and university libraries, as well as some public and special libraries, provide access to electronic journals and other bibliographic databases.
Slovenia's public libraries have been significantly modernised since independence. By 2000 they owned 7,383,700 units of material, including 6,775,400 books, with an annual growth rate of 431,450 units. Larger libraries have also purchased materials in foreign languages, mostly English. Materials for minority regions are bought in the language of the minority (Italian and Hungarian). Altogether public libraries occupy 60,880 square metres of land space. They have some 492,000 registered members (146,000 of whom are young people) to whom they lend 16,100,000 units of material off premises and 3,200,000 units on premises annually.
By 2007 the loan rate was approaching 20 million per year, placing Slovenia in second place within the EU behind Denmark; this means that the average Slovene borrows more than 10 items annually. The public libraries also lend 14,800 units of material each year via inter-library loans. Some public libraries also process local history material. Six public libraries provide mobile library services – the so-called 'travelling library' - at 781 service points, meeting the needs of resident populations within less-populated areas of their own municipalities and of neighbouring municipalities.
Several public libraries have acquired new buildings and premises. In Autumn 2006, for example, the three original branches of the Oton Župančič Library were united in a dedicated modern three-storey facility at Kersnikova 2 in central Ljubljana, leaving three remaining branches and a mobile library. Close to the Italian border, the France Bevk Goriška Library, Nova Gorica has been housed in a new, modern building and will soon be adding an academic function to its remit.
Two Slovene public libraries are responsible for supplying the information-related needs of the Slovene minorities in Austria and Italy - the Slovene Reference Library (Slovenska študijska knjižnica) in Klagenfurt/Celovec and the National and Reference Library (Narodna in študijska knjižnica) in Triest/Trst. The biggest problem facing these institutions is financing the purchase of materials and computer equipment. Both receive a Slovene legal deposit copy and take part in the COBISS - Slovene Virtual Library system, and employees are trained within Slovene programmes.The
University of Ljubljana incorporates 39 faculty libraries (see
University of Ljubljana Libraries) and the
University of Maribor eight. Five independent faculty institution and other organisation libraries operate within this framework, possessing a total of 6,367,000 units of material including 4,883,000 units of library material and 19,700 subscribed serial publication titles.
In 2000 around 133,000 members borrowed more than 3,000,000 units of material. Annual growth of library material currently stands at approximately 162,000 units. All faculty libraries are incorporated into the automated library information system COBISS, thereby contributing bibliographic records to the shared catalogue COBIB, along with bibliographic data of published works by faculty teachers and researchers.
All users of faculty libraries have Internet access and therefore access to OPACs all around the world. They can also use various online databases (eg Web of Science, Science Direct, Eifl direct/Ebsco host, Elsevier, Emerald) or databases on CD-ROMs which are bought by university libraries and available on IZUM. Users also have access to around 10,000 electronic journal titles.
The
National and University Library (NUK) is Slovenia’s largest library, having around 2,495,500 units of material, including 1,300,000 units of library material.
It registers around 14,000 users each year. The library acquires more than 130,000 units of material
per annum, representing all media except online electronic material.
In 2006 133,906 new items were acquired, with legal deposits accounting for 91,296 items (68 per cent), purchases 12,336 items (9 per cent), exchanges 4,166 items (3 per cent) and gifts 26,108 items (20 per cent). In February 2006 a precious copy of the second edition of De Revolutionibus by Nicolaus Copernicus (1566), was discovered amongst library holdings; 200 years ago the book had been catalogued erroneously as having been published in 1766.Electronic ordering systems are used to support inter-library lending and document supply services, thus major online systems such as BLDSC, OCLC Prism, INIST, DBI Link, Proquest Doc Diss & Thesis, GBV and SUBITO are used. To date the NUK has digitised around 13,000 pages of medieval manuscripts, as well as 11,000 portraits/photographs/pictures of important persons from Slovene cultural history. Developed by NUK, the Digital Library of Slovenia portal
http://www.dLIb.si provides free access to digital items such as journals, books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, music and reference material. Another two online projects have gained national financial support in 2006: the
Kamra.si Regional Portal, which groups libraries, archives and museums at a local level with an emphasis on E-local studies and access to digital content; and DIZZIS, a digital collection of scientific and research publications which will be available through the Digital Library of Slovenia portal.
The National Centre for Library Development is based at NUK, and library activities across the country are organised within the framework of this organisation. It assesses and directs activities through statistical information acquired from libraries, and prepares drafts and proposals of library standards, laws, acts, and regulations, mainly for the use of the
Ministry of Culture.
Currently the activities of the National and University Library are carried out in a monumental building conceived by Jože Plečnik, a famous Slovene architect who worked also in Vienna and Prague. The staircase and the colonnade of the 1st floor perystil and the exterior of the palace conceived with the idea of wrapped textile and the high columns with the bronze capitals that rise in front of the large reading room are visited on daily basis by international architects as well as tourists. The original architecture was initially intended to host a maximum of 240,000 volumes and 236 reader seats. Since 1987, NUK has been striving for more space, namely a new Ljubljana University Library building. The new building was designed by the architect Marko Mušič who won the open competition in 1989. The project has been updated in the past 17 years, and the requirements for granting a construction licence were fulfilled in 2002. Elements of the Roman archaeological heritage will feature in the construction of the new library, which will be located at Zois Street in Ljubljana city centre, close to the university, Plečnik House and several other cultural institutions.The second-largest Slovene library, the
University of Maribor Library, also receives a legal deposit copy of all
Slovenica or materials printed in the Slovene language. It recently organised a seminar on the management of university libraries led by a professional from the United Kingdom. The library collaborates with the Library of the University of Bayreuth in Austria and with the Czech National Library.
Both the University of Maribor Library and the NUK are members of the UK Serial Group and the National Acquisition Group. They have also taken part in the COPERNICUS programme within the framework of the EISS-CEE/NIS (Establishment of Electronic Information Services in the countries of CEE and the New Independent States) initiative.
The
Central Technological Library, University of Ljubljana is a university library which focuses on technical literature and also boasts broad international experience. It co-operates with businesses, offering them inter-lending and document supply services while using all the newest technological tools and specialised services (BLDSC, BLSRIS, TU Delft, Subito, Ann Arbor).
The Central Technological Library was the first library in Slovenia to organise an international conference, and it continues to do so regularly today. The Library building houses the German Reading Room (Club).The
Jože Goričar Central Social Sciences Library, University of Ljubljana is a university library with its own databases that have been developed in collaboration with university researchers. It also functions as an Internet public library
, offering access to the International Encyclopaedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences, the Online Dictionary of the Social Sciences, works of FDV, theses, social science texts, EBSCOhost Journal, Emerald, Ingenta select (CatchWord), OCLC ECO ODKJG, ProQuest ABI/INFORM Global, ProQuest Digital Dissertations, ProQuest Social Science Plus, Research Papers in Economics, United Nations System of Organisations, UNESCO, WebSpirs, European Union Server, EuroInternet, Electronic Journals, Web lexicons and Text Corpora.
Out of a total of 138 special libraries, 35 are based in Slovenia’s museums and galleries and are financed or co-financed by the
Ministry of Culture. Only a few participate in the co-operative bibliographic information system COBISS. Some 884,000 units of material in special libraries are cultural in nature. One important special library is the
National Museum of Slovenia Library, which holds around 200,000 units of library material and expands by around 2,000 units each year. A notable group of special libraries in Slovenia is the monastery and church libraries, which are not incorporated into joint systems within the national network. These libraries are interesting from a historical and sociological point of view; housed mostly in buildings of cultural significance restored in period style, their collections often include very old materials such as medieval codices and
incunabula, although such material is not processed according to international standards. One of the most interesting libraries of this type is the
Seminary Library, Ljubljana, an old Baroque library built in 1701, which contains a valuable ecclesiastic and secular book collection. Another is the
Capucin Convent Library, Krško, founded in the 17th century, which presents a good example of historical bibliographical method preservation as its units are still arranged in the order of the original 1695 catalogue.
Exhibitions
Many Slovene libraries organise periodic exhibitions on a given theme, or place particular parts of their library collection on view to the public.
The NUK has co-organised numerous international exhibitions, mainly through collaboration with foreign embassies or overseas cultural missions based in Slovenia. In this way, exhibitions focusing on cultural relations between Slovenes and Austrians, Czechs and Swedes and displays of work by various Polish, Czech and German literary authors have been presented. NUK has also organised a number of exhibitions of unique material borrowed from foreign libraries.
In 1994 medieval manuscript codices written at Stična Cistercian Abbey in south east Slovenia were exhibited in close co-operation with the
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library). The exhibition was accompanied by an important scholarly publication, published in the United Kingdom. In 1996 too an important exhibition presented at NUK focused on some 400 different Bible editions and translations, published all over the world from the Middle Ages onwards. This exhibition coincided with the publication of the most recent and comprehensive Bible translation into Slovene, together with an international conference on the interpretation of the Bible. A substantial exhibition catalogue was also published. Another important exhibition was prepared in co-operation with the
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek and
Österreichisches Ost und Süd-Ost Europa Institut from Vienna, illustrating the life and work of the Slovene Jernej (Bartholomäus) Kopitar, Vienna Court librarian, philologist, historian and state censor in the middle of the 19th century. An important catalogue on Kopitar was published to coincide with this exhibition. And in 2000, the 450th anniversary of the first Slovene printed book, the NUK presented for the very first time to Slovene audiences a unique copy of the first Slovene printed book from the collection of the Austrian National Library. 2000 was also the bicentenary of the birth of the great Slovene poet France Prešeren, which was celebrated with the organisation of various exhibitions in co-operation with foreign institutions. Among the exhibitions organised by NUK in co-operation with libraries from abroad, two stood out in 2006: in Germany
The Growing Book: Slovene Book Treasures at the Bavarian State Library in Munich, and in Croatia
Creators of Two Cultures, which took place both at NUK and the National and University Library, Zagreb. The
National Museum of Slovenia Library has also taken part in international exhibitions on Habsburg ambassador Sigismund Herberstein, author of the
Rerum Moskoviticarum comentarii (1549), and the
Oton Župančič Library has co-organised two international exhibitions in the field of youth literature and comics, both in co-operation with Sweden.
Training
Most employees in university, faculty and special libraries have a university education, being graduates of various scientific disciplines. For the last 15 years undergraduate programmes in Librarianship, Information Science and Book Publishing have been offered by the
Department of Library and Information Science and Book Studies, University of Ljubljana. Thanks to different scholarships, younger generations also have the possibility of attending professional training in these fields at foreign universities. As a general rule, library employees have to pass a professional examination within a year, organised and implemented by the
National and University Library (NUK). Along with regular studies and a professional examination, librarians also have to attend certain courses to become qualified for work in libraries. Everyone processing library material in the COBISS system has to obtain a licence by taking courses at IZUM and NUK. These organisations also organise various courses on other professional themes (searching through foreign databases, creative online work, evaluating library services, etc). The NUK’s Educational and Training Centre has been accorded the title of a ‘regional educational centre’ and currently organises professional training for librarians from countries of the former Yugoslavia and Albania. Slovene librarians, particularly those employed at NUK, have taken advantage of various forms of education abroad (particularly at the University of Sheffield and the City University of London) and various forms of professional training (Mortensin Center, Illinois, the Library of Congress, etc) and have also taken classes organised by ASLIB.
Librarians of Oton Župančič Library have acquired professional training at the Queens Library in New York and at Aarhus in Denmark, organised through the PULMAN project. To date 11 librarians from eight European countries have been trained through the auspices of PULMAN. The Open Society Institute Network Programme, which has often funded international education to individuals, selected Oton Župančič Library as one of six European public libraries to organise a week's training within the framework of the Publica CEE project.The NUK offers its users regular courses in OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogues) and in searching other bibliographic databases. It also organises training in searching full-text databases, especially electronic journals. Several public libraries also organise courses in computer usage and information searches for their users.
Slovenia’s public and community libraries play a major role in providing access to Internet services as part of a wider pool of public domain information. Growing collections of film (DVD), music CDs and CD-ROM (especially interactive educational tools) also contribute to public interest and attendance. One important recent measure aimed at generating an increased number of library users is the introduction of a shared library card for the University of Ljubljana; this means that everyone who enters the University and pays a minimal sum for library membership is now entitled to a free membership card for the NUK and other faculty libraries. A similar card has just been introduced at University of Maribor Library. The university libraries also organise educational programmes for student groups, to introduce them to library organisation, collections and information sources.
Legislation and funding
The primary source of legislation relating to library activity in Slovenia is the Library Act of November 2001, which was amended in 2002. This introduced changes to the financing system relating to public libraries, changed the structure of library councils and control and also introduced library inspections. It also guaranteed minority and ethnic group rights to information services. Library activity in Slovenia is also regulated by the Act on Fulfilment of Public Interest for Culture, passed in December 2002.
Municipalities bear a statutory obligation to provide library services for their citizens. The state provides incentives for them by co-funding the annual purchase of books and the process of digitisation. In 2005, 90 out of 220 books per 1,000 inhabitants were purchased using state funds. Other important pieces of legislation with a bearing on the library sector are the Act on the Protection of Cultural Heritage (1999) and various other strategic documents passed by the former Ministry of Information Society. According to the 1974 Legal Deposit Act (1974), legal deposit copies are sent to the NUK as well as to all regional public libraries and the two Slovene libraries in Klagenfurt/Celovec (Austria) and Triest/Trst (Italy). In 2006 a new Act on the Legal Deposit of Publications (Official Gazette No 69/2006) was adopted. Its main feature was that it reduced the number of legal deposits to NUK from 16 to 4, with the exception of publications produced with public support, which remain at 16. The law includes electronic publications and deals with the issue of archiving electronic publications in the NUK, as well as defining users' access to these materials.
With the 2002 Amendment to the Librarianship Act, Slovenia began to meet certain requirements towards the authors of works which are borrowed from public libraries (poets, authors of other text-based works, translators, illustrators, photographers, music and film authors). The introduction of a library compensation scheme should encourage creativity in different art fields; the funds generated from this scheme are either distributed to living authors on the basis of lending frequency in libraries, or set aside to create scholarships for authors of high quality.
All who are entitled to receive compensation must have their works available for lending in general libraries and these works must contain texts, illustrations, photographs, music or film. Library compensation can be obtained by authors from the lending of original and translated books, audio-cassettes, CD records, video cassettes and DVDs, provided the extent to which they were lent exceeds a certain threshold. Within the framework of the COBISS system a special web application has been created which permits authors to find out for themselves whether or not they qualify for library compensation and allows them to notify the Ministry in the event that they are entitled to such compensation. The system also enables authors to review the data on their books and if necessary make corrections. The management of scholarships within this scheme is subject to a public tender call inviting bids from the relevant authors’/artists’ association (eg the Slovene Writers’ Association).The NUK and some special libraries are financed by the
Ministry of Culture, while the activities of university, faculty and school libraries plus a number of special research libraries are financed by the
Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology. Public libraries are financed mainly from municipal funds, which cover infrastructural and programming costs, while the Ministry of Culture covers the cost of purchasing publications and computer equipment and also funds certain public library development projects. The Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology finances the purchase of foreign publications (primarily foreign periodicals), databases on CD-ROM and online access to bibliographic and full-text databases. It also funds the IZUM Computer Centre, which hosts Slovenia’s computer-based library and information system and services.
Public libraries form their purchase policies independently although, following the standard, their funds are required to be disbursed 60 per cent on literature, 40 per cent on specialised material and 10 per cent on reference material in free access. The majority of publications purchased are in the Slovene language, but libraries also buy foreign technical and reference material. Finances for the purchase of these materials are secured by the library’s founder, the municipality and the
Ministry of Culture (at least 30 per cent). Material is mainly available in free access, while information on the material can be obtained in the local or reciprocal computer catalogue. All libraries provide home lending (except for periodicals and reference material) and also borrow materials for their users via an inter-library loans system.
