NSK Day 2026: Another successful year in more than four centuries of existence

Rejoicing together with our partners and friends, we have celebrated this year’s National and University Library in Zagreb (NSK) Day, marking 419 years of the Library’s existence and bringing into spotlight those who have contributed most to its work in the past year.

Commemorating the printing on 22 February 1483 of the first book in the Croatian language and the first book in Europe not printed in the Latin script, a ‘Missal by the Law of the Roman Court’ (Misal po zakonu rimskoga dvora; Missale Romanum glagolitice), NSK Day symbolically links the beginnings of Croatian printed heritage to the Library’s role in safeguarding that heritage since 1607, presently as Croatia’s major cultural and research institution and the centre of the Croatian national library system.

Guarding thoughts and ideas to ensure a bright future

After the address by the Envoy of the Croatian Minister of Culture and Media and Director of the Ministry’s Directorate for Archives, Libraries and Museums Anuška Deranja Crnokić, who emphasised the importance of the Library’s work both on the preservation and management of cultural heritage and on the advancement of information society, the Envoy of the Croatian Prime Minister and State Secretary at the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Youth Professor Nikola Mrvac also greeted the celebration participants, underlining the Library’s importance as “the guardian of thoughts”, whose preservation as part of curating the Library’s collections provides a firm basis for the development of Croatian culture and research in the future, thus also averting any threats to the freedom of the Croatian people.

An eventful and demanding year marked by historic achievements

Following her warm welcome to the celebration participants, the Director General of the National and University Library in Zagreb Dr Ivanka Stričević thanked all who contributed to the Library’s work in the previous, highly tumultuous year.

In her overview of the Library’s activities in 2025, she singled out the setting up of Bukinet, a cloud-based system for Croatian academic libraries, as truly historic. Established as a result of the decades of efforts of the enitre Croatian library community and the implementation of the Alma library services platform and Primo VE discovery service which NSK was tasked with as part of the e-Universities project, the Bukinet platform now links together 83 libraries in the Croatian higher education system, greatly facilitating the management of their collections and other resources and providing unprecedented support to their users in learning and research.

Another breakthrough for NSK in 2025 was the publication of Incunabula Croatica, a monograph documenting the findings of decades of extensive research into Croatia’s earliest printed books and their relevance in the context of European cultural heritage. Also, with its participation in Croatia’s celebration in 2025 of 1,100 years of the continuity of the Croatian national identity and statehood, the Library reaffirmed its vital role as the holder and keeper of historic documents bearing witness to Croatia’s millennial cultural and national traditions.

Particularly standing out among the Library’s latest statistics are over 200,000 registered entries to the Library’s building, tellingly indicating that the Library’s spaces have remained relevant in the context of research and study despite the advance of digital technologies. Similar conclusions can be made based on the success of more than 70 events that NSK organised in 2025 for the general public.

However, the growing share of digital resources in the Library’s accessions in 2025, in which context out of altogether 90,000 accessions to NSK’s collections 50,000 were digital, along with 333,000 pages of the Croatica collection that the Library digitised in 2025, clearly show that these resources are becoming dominant.

Finally, working on 20 national and seven international cooperation projects with its staff taking part in the activities of 25 international organisations and institutions, the National and University Library in Zagreb rightfully celebrates another successful year.

The 2025 National and University Library in Zagreb Awards laureates

Traditionally, the celebration programme included the National and University Library in Zagreb Awards ceremony – the Head of the Library’s Digital Imaging Unit Silvio Lebinac received the award for 2025 in the category for the Library’s outstanding employees, Professor at the Department of Information Sciences and Technologies at the University of Zadar Marijana Tomić was awarded for her outstanding contribution to the development of the library profession in Croatia, while the winner of the award for a legal entity successful in implementing intrasectoral and intersectoral cooperation initiatives were the Croatian State Archives.

The 2025 special awards from the NSK Director General went to the representative of the Croatian Institute for Librarianship Dr Breza Šalamon-Cindori and to the NSK Alma/Primo VE digital library platform implementation team, headed by the NSK Assistant Director General for University Library Affairs Dr Dijana Machala, who received the award on behalf of the team.

The accompanying musical programme featured a memorable performance by an award-winning Croatian classical guitarist Srđan Bulat, who played works by the Croatian composers Slavko Fumić, Miroslav Miletić and Boris Papandopulo on a unique seven-string guitar hand-crafted by a Croatian luthier Želimir Sever.

Always celebrating with our users

As usual, in the days preceding the celebration, we organised our Doors Open Days programme.

Spotlighting the anniversaries of historic events and the related cultural artefacts in our collections, it included special guided tours of the Library and presented opportunities for the general public to learn more about the Library’s services.

Happy NSK Day 2026!

Photo: © NSK