The first Croatian portal in the fieeld of culture (CultureNetCroatia) was initiated by the Ministry of Culture and the Open Society Institute - Croatia and has been accessible to users since 2001. The aim of the Project was to pool all the available information sources on Croatian culture, encourage its elaboration and enable professionals in culture to Þ nd in one place all the information they may need as well as Þ nd partners for their projects. Accordingly, the project was geared at promoting
cultural co-operation both within Croatia and with foreign countries as well as enhancing better communication between Croatian cultural institutions, between institutions and artists and between all of them and the broader cultural public. As a joint project it has been accessible on the Web since April 2004 and since then, the project is a responsibility of the Ministry of Culture.
A large number of existing websites and portals does not necessarily guarantee the networking that exceeds the exchange of links and development of new joint virtual projects, an issue the cultural sector has been deliberating on for quite some time now. We will analise our four-year experience regarding the operation of the portal and services developed in order to deÞ ne the role of the portal today and whether it has succeeded
in networking and initiating cooperation between professionals in culture as well as establish what kind of relationship it has achieved with its users. Along with a review of the project scope to date,
the presentation will also contain elements for its evaluation in the context of the changes on the Croatian cultural web scene in the four years of the project’s operation. Given that the project has
become part of the regular activities of the Ministry of Culture its developmental possibilities within national and international developments in the e-culture sphere need to be reassessed
