In “No man’s land”: Libraries in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina

Kasapović, Indira

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/89841 Copy

Description

Title

In “No man’s land”: Libraries in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina

Author(s)

Kasapović, Indira

Issue Date

2015

Keyword(s)

• Post-Communism Development
• History of Libraries
• Russia--Libraries
• Central and Eastern Europe--Libraries

Abstract

This paper presents the complex situation that libraries in Bosnia and Herzegovina face and suggests possible avenues for improvement. After brief coverage of the history of libraries in the country from the Middle Ages to the communist period, the paper focuses on the devastation that occurred during the war that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995, which was formally brought to an end by the Dayton Peace Agreement. The problems that libraries have faced in the current period of peace cannot be understood without reference to this episode of the war. The most difficult problems they face today are the lack of adequate legislation, the politicization of library activities, and the war devastation. In addition, at the beginning of 2014, the library and information system of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is based on a computer program for cooperative cataloging, was split into two parts. The fragmentation of contemporary Bosnian and Herzegovinian society is evidenced by the damage and division that politics has managed to effect, which the war did not.

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

ISSN

0024-2594

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89841

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2015.0027

Copyright and License Information

Copyright (2015) Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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