As Novi list writes on the 2nd of April, 2019, the democratisation of knowledge in this way is a true revolution and encompasses every person, from elementary and high school pupils, to college students and even corporation managers. Middle-aged and older people will also get an extraordinary opportunity to supplement their lifelong learning materials from the collection of this ever-expanding library. Meet Library of Croatia.
This spring, both residents and visitors to Croatia will be able to walk through Library of Croatia’s ”vitrual doors”. Through this innovative platform for free and anonymous reading, which has been entirely developed by an interdisciplinary team of Croatian experts, anyone who finds themselves on the territory of the Republic of Croatia will have thousands of varied publications in many of the world’s languages freely and readily available to them. From school books and world literary classics, to numerous tourist guidebooks and cookbooks, to poetry and love novels, an enormous array of titles will be available via Library of Croatia.
This season, Croatia will become first country that enables its residents and its visitors access to an unlimited virtual library through open digital platforms and related applications, available on all computers and mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, Cover writes.
The Library of Croatia breaks the barriers between people and writing in all its forms, encourages the development of literary culture in unprecedented ways and creates new opportunities for virtually all sectors of society, both public and private, from culture, publishing, and education, to tourism and economy.
”This platform and product opens up a new world for the entire Croatian society,” said Mirela Rončević, the author of the innovative idea whose global name is One Country One Library.
“We have created a circle from which we’ll all benefit, and in doing so, provide people knowledge, regardless of their location and their purchasing power. Our partners support an innovative mission that is equally related to culture as well as to education and tourism, and they contribute to knowledge, expanding everywhere while improving their business,” she added.
Library of Croatia is a library of the future coming to realisation in the present day, it’s totally free and open to everyone, both in public places and in the privacy of their homes. Although many types of digital platforms have been launched in recent years on the foreign market, none have managed to merge various forms of publications into a single entity and open them up within the boundaries of a country, making them accessible to everyone without requiring any sort of identity verification.
The Library of Croatia is, in fact, unique in the world because it has succeeded in doing what nobody has ever done; to turn the entire country into a library, freely available to all people within its boundaries.
As stated, Library of Croatia offers all forms of content in one place: short stories, poetry, scientific publications, columns, tourist guides, Croatian and world classics, lectures etc. It also offers cutting-edge innovations in the digital world such as anonymous reading, font adapted to those with dyslexia, the ability to create and build private and public collections within the platform (so-called pockets), and the ability to self-disclose for independent authors.
The platform also provides a profound insight into reading analytics. According to the head of IT development project, physicist Duje Bonaccija, so far the key tool in measuring the success of a particular book has been its sales, but this indicator can’t actually say anything about how much of those books were actually read.
Library of Croatia’s team consists of experts from various fields, including IT, publishing, tourism, education, librarianship and marketing.
”For the first time in history, modern technology provides equal access to educational content to everyone regardless of the place or time of access,” said sociologist Damir Kvesić for Cover, who joined the LoC team in an effort to point out the importance of this move for Croatia’s education.
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