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The paper brings, in chronological order, short biographies of the directors of the National and University Library in Zagreb and its predecessor libraries. The introduction offers an overview of the former investigations and accumulated knowledge on the status and role of the previous managers of this central Croatian library, followed by short descriptions of their life and work in the Library. The aim of this paper is to contribute to its 400th anniversary by supplementing the more extensive published works on its collected book heritage, events, premises and services, from which we rarely learn much about the persons who gave the greatest contribution to its development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes current practice of the classification of history in the National and University Library, Zagreb according to the Universal Decimal Classification. The author explains the main concepts in the field of history and stresses the important rôle of common auxiliaries in indexing of this type of content. Various issues and ambiguities in content analysis and classification are described and solutions proposed. The author pays particular attention to class 930 Science of history and to the issues of: determination of the historical content, interdisciplinarity of historical content, and objectivity and consistency in indexing. The paper provides an insight into advantages and disadvantages of historical geographical subdivision for Croatia and suggests subdivision of the history of Croatia by period, in order to enable more specific indexing. The author concludes by suggesting that proposed solutions should be adopted as a standard approach by Croatian libraries in order to enhance information discovery and access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic planning and strategic management are present in librarianship like in all other economic activities of modern society and link the librarianship with the field of market management and economy in general. As stated in the Regulations of the Activities of Central Commissions for Libraries in the Republic of Croatia (2001, article 15), the National and University Library in Zagreb is the center of the library system and the central library for all types of libraries in the Republic of Croatia. It has the task to organize and develop libraries in the Republic of Croatia in order to improve their work, taking into consideration the contemporary librarianship theory and practice, and thus ensure the quality of library services in science, education, culture, and society. Building the strategy for the development of libraries in the Republic of Croatia cannot be separated from the context of, especially European, librarianship, so this paper will also present the strategies of several European and US libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses several groups of problems identified in classification of art history according to Universal Decimal Classification (UDC). As the first group of issues the author mentions the existence of more than one UDC number for the same concept, and finds that, sometimes, the distinction made in UDC between different aspects of the same concepts is not necessary. In the second group of issues the author lists some deficiences of the UDC scheme as present in the Croatian edition from 2005 (based on the UDC MRF from 1998) and points out the problems of the out-of-date classification of periods of mediaeval art in this edition and confusing terminology and hierarchy of modern and contemporary art. The author describes how the above listed problems are solved in the classification practice of the National and University Library in Zagreb (Croatia). The author clarifies which of the above mentioned issues can be managed through the library's classification guidelines and which can only be alleviated using a revised UDC schedule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]