Slovenica: professional novelties of the new Slovenian Library Act

Abstract

The new Slovenian Library Act introduces the term Slovenica to describe the most essential part of the national library collection. This term was introduced to Slovenian librarianship in the early thirties of the past century, but the collection of Slovenica was founded more than a hundred years before that time in the Lyceum Library, the predecessor of the present National and University Library. The criteria for the selection of the collection were influenced by the state regulated implementation of local studies collections into the lyceum and university libraries on one hand and by the growing national consciousness of Slovenian librarians on the other. This process began in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, when local studies material was prescribed in instructions regulating the integration of library materials from the dissolved monastery libraries to the state supported lyceum and university libraries.These instructions were upgraded by the explicit guidelines concerning local studies collections in the nineteenth century to finally evolve into a legally recognised activity of the national library after the Second World War.