National and University Library in Zagreb celebrates NSK Day 2024
On 22 February 2024, the National and University Library in Zagreb (NSK) organised and hosted a special programme marking this year’s NSK Day and 417 years of NSK’s history.
Bringing together the representatives of the University of Zagreb and other Croatian universities and research institutions, the Central State Office for Digital Society Development, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (CASA), leading library professionals and former NSK directors general, the programme featured addresses by the Envoy of the Croatian Minister of Culture and Media and State Secretary Dr Ivica Poljičak, Envoy of the Croatian Minister of Science and Education and State Secretary Ivica Šušak and the Library’s Director General Dr Ivanka Stričević.
In her message of congratulation, Dr Stričević addressed the Library’s staff and the present guests and thanked for support for the Library’s work the Library’s Governing Board, Ministry of Science and Education, Ministry of Culture and Media and the Government of the Republic of Croatia, the Library’s founder, also expressing gratitude for cooperation to the Library’s many partners, as well as to all individuals and institutions with which the Library collaborated in the past year.
After giving an overview of the Library’s activities in 2023, in which context she particularly emphasised the larger share for the first time in the newly acquired Library’s resources of the digital over analogue content which made 57% of almost 113,000 items which the Library’s accessioned in 2023, as well as the international recognition that its Green Library for Green Croatia programme received by being among the winners of the 2023 Energy Globe Award, Dr Stričević announced the Library’s new strategic period.
The celebration programme included the National and University Library in Zagreb Award ceremony – a member of the Conservation and Restoration Division of the Library’s Preservation and Storage Department Đuro Singer received the award for 2023 in the category for the Library’s outstanding employees and the Director of the Rijeka University Library Lea Lazzarich was awarded as a longstanding and prominent library professional for her outstanding contribution to the development of the library profession in Croatia.
The 2023 award from the NSK Director General for a legal entity successful in implementing intrasectoral and intersectoral cooperation initiatives was presented to Dr Vida Vukoja, as the Director of the Old Church Slavonic Institute. The remaining 2023 special awards from the NSK Director General went to a former Head of the Library’s Preservation and Storage Department’s Storage Division Mirjana Tišljar, for excellence and proactivity in her long professional career, and the NSK Joint Operations Department’s Financial Operations and Accounting Section, for excellence and proactivity in fostering team work.
The celebration attendees enjoyed an accompanying musical programme featuring a performance by the Flam-a Duo percussion ensemble.
Ushering in the celebration was the two-day NSK Doors Open Days programme, as part of which the general public could learn more about the Library’s collections and its services, programmes and events.
The National and University Library in Zagreb Day, NSK Day, is marked in memory of 22 February 1483, the day of the printing of the first book in the Croatian language, a ‘Missal by the Law of the Roman Court’ (Misal po zakonu rimskoga dvora; Missale Romanum glagolitice), which the Library preserves as one of its greatest treasures, in its Manuscripts and Old Books Collection. Also, the Library’s logotype, the letter of the angular Glagolitic alphabet Iže, i.e. the transliterated Latin letter ‘I’, has been taken over precisely from this historic missal, the oldest incunabulum in the Croatian language and the first book in Europe not printed in the Latin alphabet, the date of whose publication since 2019 has also been celebrated as the Croatian Glagolitic Script Day and whose digital copy is available on the Croatian Glagolitic Heritage website (Glagoljica.hr), along with other works of the Croatian Glagolitic tradition.
