Library Consortia in Croatia by MAJA JOKIC

Croatia is a Middle-European, Mediterranean country with 4 universities (Zagreb, Osijek, Rijeka and Split) with about 85,000 students and about 4,5 million population. Apart from the biggest and the oldest library, The National and University Library in Zagreb (founded in 1607), which is at the same time the central academic library for the whole country, there are central university libraries at the other three universities, too. Apart from those, there are also 102 faculty libraries and 56 institute libraries. The main financier of this library system is the Ministry of Science and Technology. It has a huge role in making decisions on founding a consortium of academic and research libraries. Required for functioning of library consortia is a good telecommunication and information system, provided in Croatia by CARNet The Croatian Academic and Research Network. Basic objectives of CARNet are development and support to computer and information infrastructure of the scientific and academic community, and implementation and support to the latest computer communication and information technologies (IT).