Address:
Mihajla i Živka Crnogorčevića 7
75 000 Tuzla
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Telephones: +387 (35)
Main: 272 626
Director: 266 343
Technical secretary: 252 644
Fax: 273-190
E-mail: nubt@nubt.ba, nubtz@bih.net.ba
Web site: www.nubt.ba
Bank account: 132-100-03000490-41 Tuzlanska banka dd Tuzla
Opening hours: 8 – 18
1st Saturday: 9 – 15
July – August: 8 – 16
Since its founding in 1946, the Tuzla Public Library has been successfully performing a leading role in the area, while serving the function of general education and information as well as matching people’s cultural needs.
Quite independently, the Tuzla University Library was established in 1986, with the primary aim of improving functional incorporation of the University libraries and documentation centers into a joined library and information system of the Tuzla University, as well as to develop its own services in order to support the University’s inclusion into the world’s system of scientific information. The University Library took advantage of auspicious circumstances in the late eighties, and joined a larger library and information system based on modern information and telecommunication equipment, which made it capable to provide the teachers and researchers from The University with relevant information resources.
Since October 1992, the two libraries have been merged into one – the Public and University Library Tuzla, while sharing the premises, personnel and information resources as the main institution of this kind in the Tuzla Canton.
From April 2002 the Library has got the honor to bear the name of famous Bosnian writer and former Library director, Derviš Sušić.
The Library possesses diverse and valuable collections of over 200.000 library items (general reference collection; fundamental works of science and arts; outstanding editions in literature, history and philosophy; domestic and foreign rarities; doctoral and master papers; serial publication etc.) The change of scientific and educational programs at the University, including foundation of new colleges, made some library collections more attractive for library patrons from academic environment and more frequently used. This refers especially to the deposit copy collection, covering all titles of monographic and serial publications printed within the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina and received by the Tuzla Public Library throughout its fifty-year operation. This valuable segment of the Library’s holdings served, in 1974, as the basis for establishment of the Regional Collection of all recorded materials referring the Tuzla region.
A remarkable enrichment and a new quality in the Library’s holdings are collections of materials in foreign languages, established within the foreign cultural centers that have been placed under the roof of this house. Austrian Library, American Reading Room, Iranian Library and French Cultural Center meet with their respective programs an increasing interest for foreign languages in our milieu, and support the corresponding programs initiated recently at the Tuzla University. The work of foreign libraries and cultural centers within our house speaks, among other things, about dynamic international activities that the Library developed having made cooperation with similar institutions from USA, Malaysia, Germany, Austria, Croatia, France, Netherlands, Great Britain and other countries.
With the first signs of stabilization in the area of library financing the Library intensified the process of planning and building its collection of library materials, first of all trying to cover the entirety of domestic publishing production. It is evident, however, that the war effected a deep decay of library potentials in the Tuzla Canton. It will take time, work and financial resources to harmonize a joint offer of the libraries with the information needs of their clientele. That is why our Library is strongly interested in being involved in all activities leading toward an enhancement of the entire cantonal library network, from public and school libraries to academic ones. That’s why the range of our activities is so wide – from initial equipping of newly established libraries in Brčko District area and providing traveling branch library service (bookmobile) for refugee communities, to prospecting for the most favorable conditions for access to relevant information resources in treasures of the biggest world libraries, necessary to researchers from our University.
In 1996, the Library started to build computerized catalog COBISS in cooperation with Institute of Information Science IZUM, Maribor, Slovenia. In the middle of 1998 this work turned into online shared cataloging, after the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Sarajevo and several other Bosnian libraries joined the system. Although at the initial stage, this catalog is accessible through the Internet on location www.cobiss.ba, as COBISS – Virtual Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This activity is based on technological infrastructure provided by BIHARNET – Academic and Research Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The long-term program orientation of the Library directs its activities toward the revitalization of the links disconnected by the aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina. This implies the close cooperation with the central Bosnian institution of this kind, the National and University Library in Sarajevo, in the field of re-establishment of the country’s library and information system, as well as work on reconstruction of the library and information system of the Tuzla University and its inclusion in the global system of scientific information. It can be expected that the new experiences in use of advanced computer and communication technologies, gathered through participation in the ventures mentioned above, will bring the Library closer to its strategic goals and help it to serve its community in a better and more productive way.
DIRECTOR’S WORD
Momentous and numerous tasks have been assigned by the citizens of the Tuzla Canton to their major Library:
- the duties of the municipal public library which point our work toward serving the information needs of Tuzla City inhabitants of all ages and backgrounds;
- the jobs of the central library in the network of school and public libraries in the Tuzla Canton municipalities;
- the tasks of an university library which determine our role in the library network of the Tuzla University;
- the tasks of preserving, processing and providing access to the deposit copy of materials printed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which stress the importance of contribution that we are giving as a cantonal library to the re-construction of the country’s library and information system.
Projects
Bearing in mind that only our Users are eligible to judge how good we are in completing our tasks, the Public and University Library “Derviš Sušić” Tuzla started a series of development projects aimed to improve some segments of its complex organism and give them a form which will meet the expectations of our Users.
As a top priority we are planning to use some 500 square meters of library space for establishing a reading room intended primarily for students and teachers from the Tuzla University. Reading room will be equipped with our enlarged and renovated reference collections (encyclopaedias, dictionaries, bibliographic databases etc.) and with our enriched scientific resources, especially periodicals. This equipment will also involve computer network with free access to the Internet for our users. Complementary to this project is our systematical work on collection development, primarily focused on basic titles in subjects and fields studied at the Tuzla University.
We intend to support more decisively the creative affirmation of the young authors through our educational, promotional and publishing programs, and to bring these programs closer to the interests of young people. In these activities, we will be even more open to the partnership with similar institutions and organizations in the country, and especially from abroad. We expect to animate non-governmental organizations and foreign embassies for cooperation on projects such as establishment of the debate club or organization of a series of seminars that will focus on the questions of human rights and democratic process in former Yugoslavia.
The next project we enter upon with great attention and expectation is intended to the youngest users and deals with a substantial rearrangement of our children department. I left it for the end of this list, just to emphasize its urgency – we all know that children have no time to wait for their toy collections, corner for storytelling, room for computer workshops…
In order to provide support for these projects we held several meetings with local authorities. In future months, we plan to establish contact with a number of non-governmental organizations, foreign embassies and various philanthropic funds from which we hope to obtain material support and help with training of our staff.
One of the reasons why we decided on starting our website at this very moment was our intention to take an advantage of the Internet for speaking a word about the Library’s future plans. We hope we will be able to develop the site by adding the appropriate contents. We also hope that its usefulness will grow together with the number of computers from which our users can access it, either from within the Library or from their schools, working places and homes.