Abstract
The aim of this paper was to explore the issue of library borrowing of books written by Croatian authors. The focus was on the most borrowed books. In the first part of the paper there is a literature review related to the topic, such as readers’ preferences and the importance of culturally diverse materials. Following the presentation of theoretical background, the second part of the paper presents the research findings. The research goals were as follows: 1) to explore how often the users of Croatian public libraries have borrowed books written by authors from Croatia in comparison to books by non-Croatian authors; 2) to explore the characteristics of the most borrowed books by Croatian authors (when they were published; the gender of the authors; if they are fiction, non-fiction or picture books; what their genres are). The public libraries in Zagreb, Split, Rijeka and Pula were included in the research. The findings indicate that there are about 10% of books by Croatian authors among the 2,000 most borrowed books in the listed libraries. The majority of the books are fiction books published for the first time after the year 2000.
Highlights
Book borrowings of a considerable number of library users in Croatia are aimed primarily at world bestsellers
The findings presented in this research paper are not related to bestsellers, but they are relevant for the main research topic of the paper: an exploration of the aspects of cultural diversity of Croatian books which are mostly borrowed in libraries, and the exploration of the frequency of borrowing Croatian books in relation to the frequency of borrowing foreign books
After we presented the findings that indicate low levels of borrowing of books by Croatian authors compared to the books by foreign authors, we will present in more the detail various aspects of the 300 books by Croatian authors included in the sample, the books that were the most borrowed books by Croatian authors in the four libraries included in the research
Summary
Book borrowings of a considerable number of library users in Croatia are aimed primarily at world bestsellers. The total share of the most borrowed books from these two regions is 91.3% This finding is another confirmation of a highly western-centric book borrowing pattern of many Croatian library users. It is evident that most borrowed books are from the USA, and some Western European countries, those that have the biggest and most influential book publishers in the world Another finding from this research is that in all the four Croatian libraries the most borrowed books are almost exclusively novels (Ibid). Considering the findings of this recent study, it would be worthwhile to explore in more detail the borrowing of books by authors from Croatia in Croatian public libraries This is precisely the research goal of this study, which is the extension of the study by Juric and Duić
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