In the last two decades, Croatian libraries have been influenced by
four key factors: 1) becoming an independent state with new sociopolitical
and economic systems in the 1990s, during which time
the state transformed from socialism to a democracy with a market
economy; 2) reconstructing after the devastation brought by war;
3) developing information and communication technologies; and
4) experiencing the effects of a global economic crisis, the impact
of which is still strongly evident throughout Croatia. The present
state of libraries in Croatia indicates that the profession of librarianship
and libraries are facing many problems. Yet, there is also a
sign of the significant potential resulting from the long tradition
of librarianship in Croatian history, and the relatively high level of
library development that had occurred centuries prior to the process
of transition brought by upheaval in the late twentieth century.
During the postsocialist period, libraries in Croatia saw the continued
evolution of a historical, legal, and normative library framework
invested in librarianship as a service to the public, coupled with an
increase in international networking, cooperation, and education.
The rapid global advancement of information and communications
technologies in the last decade of the twentieth century expedited
the construction of the technological infrastructure necessary to
building Croatian libraries, enabling their innovation. At the present
time, the country’s libraries are characterized by a focus on the
information needs of their patrons that is guided by the principle
of freedom of access to information.published or submitted for publicatio
