About the project

The project Croatian Glagolitic was started by the National and University Library in Zagreb along with Croatian science and heritage institutions. The project is carried out by The Manuscripts and Old Books Collection, The Department of Library Material Preservation, and other departments of the Library coordinated by The Center for Development of Croatian Digital Library at The Croatian Institute for Librarianship and technically supported by ArhivPro d.o.o.

2018

Through the cooperation of several institutions, the second phase of the project Croatian Glagolitic: Digitization of the Material and Formation of the Digital Collection II (supervised by Irena Galić-Bešker, PhD) saw the continuation of the digitization of works in Glagolitic and on Glagolitic, along with the acquisition of digital copies from abroad, and the improvement of the functionality of the portal Glagoljica.hr. Furthermore, with prior permission, the publication of papers on the Glagolitic script by contemporary authors was continued.

2017

The aim of starting the project Croatian Glagolitic: Digitization of the Material and Formation of the Digital Collection (supervised by Ivan Kosić, PhD, and Irena Galić-Bešker, PhD) was to encourage the digitisation of Glagolitic books and manuscripts from Croatian and foreign institutions thus making them available to researchers, students, pupils and the general public using the portal Glagoljica.hr. Additionally, digitisation enables protection of the original and sensitive material against frequent use and exposure to inappropriate microclimate conditions. There are also plans to enable reading of the originals in parallel with their transcripts, comments or translations.

The program was implemented in 2017 as part of the regular activities of the NUL and The Program of Digitisation by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia. Using the equipment available at the NUL, we digitized the material found in the National and University Library in Zagreb, along with the material in the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Library, the St. Francis Monastery on the island of Cres, and the Library of the Franciscan Monastery at Ksaver (10 462 pages in total). Digital copies of professional and scientific papers on Glagolitic script and Glagolitism were identified and collected, while a part of the older papers was further digitised. The National and University Library in Zagreb received permission to publish the papers written by twelve Croatian scientists and researchers. The publication of papers on Croatian Glagolitic enriched the digital collection of the same name for 342 contemporary papers. Croatian artist Vjera Reiser gave permission for the digitisation and publication of the graphic map of General Confession (Spovid općena) with seven miniatures, as well as the work entitled Our Father for Our Homeland and Our Little Planet: the Senj Glagolitic Missal 1494 − 1994: Author’s Glagolitic Map, illustrated and artistically designed by the author herself, with the preface by Anica Nazor and Stanko Špoljarić. Croatian scientist and writer Jasna Horvat allowed the publication of a fragment of the novel AZ (Zagreb: Naklada Ljevak, 2009) along with its complete translation in English (AZ − Exploring the Ancient Croatian Glagolitic Script).

For the thematic portal of the project, the NUL provided the Internet domain of glagoljica.hr, including a portal with metadata, digital copies and other texts and images related to the Glagolitic script.

The original material (9918 pages) was scanned in color at the National and University Library in Zagreb. The scanned documents were published in the Indigo system and are available on the portal Glagoljica.hr. The implementation of an appropriate browser enables a parallel viewing of the originals and their transcripts, comments, or translations. By delivering the metadata to the portal Europeana, the collection will be promoted internationally. Employees of several departments and institutes of the National and University Library in Zagreb contributed to the realization of the project. The project activities and cooperation with the company ArhivPro d.o.o. were coordinated by The Center for Development of the Croatian Digital Library at The Croatian Institute of Library Science.