In “No Man’s Land”: Libraries in Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

This paper presents the complex situation that libraries in Bosnia and Herzegovina face and suggests possible avenues for improvement. After brief coverage of the history of libraries in the country from the Middle Ages to the communist period, the paper focuses on the devastation that occurred during the war that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995, which was formally brought to an end by the Dayton Peace Agreement. The problems that libraries have faced in the current period of peace cannot be understood without reference to this episode of the war. The most difficult problems they face today are the lack of adequate legislation, the politicization of library activities, and the war devastation. In addition, at the beginning of 2014, the library and information system of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is based on a computer program for cooperative cataloging, was split into two parts. The fragmentation of contemporary Bosnian and Herzegovinian society is evidenced by the damage and division that politics has managed to effect, which the war did not.

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