Summary
Libraries and publishers are inseparably linked and largely dependent on each other. This paper focuses attention on their relationship, keeping in mind readers and library users, while neglecting, on this occasion, other members of community of book (authors, translators, printers, distributors...). Book is being looked upon as spiritual good and its merchandise and market nature is being indicated. The reference list illustrates position of libraries, publishers and bookstores in Serbia in the past half-century. The reaction of a number of Serbian publishers to this year’s purchase of books for libraries, and the recent meeting of librarians and publishers dedicated to public procurement and purchase of books held at the City Library in Pančevo, have prompted us to undertake writing this article. The authors of this paper are aware that it was just a (small) part of the publishing community, nevertheless their valuable comments suggest that we should re-examine the current model of purchase of books for our libraries, the environment in which we work, the library practice, the theoretical and ideological context of our work, as well as the principles of the acquisition policy. The available information indicates that the library system has successfully adapted to the requirements of time and made significant progress in the recent decades. At the same time, the publishing sector has significantly collapsed and transformed in many aspects, due to ownership transformation and changes of economic and political structure of the community. Numerous distinguished and important publishers no longer exist. Bookshop network has also suffered heavy losses, therefore many cities in Serbia do not have a single bookstore. It turns out that the problem of cultural level of readers, i.e. relation between the high literature and the one that does not possess significant aesthetic qualities, is rather a constant than a current tendency of the present moment. These problems were pointed out some thirty years ago, too, and there were various initiatives to change that state of affairs, unfortunately, with little success. Nowadays, educational level and literacy skills of citizens of Serbia are at much higher level, but the question of problematic (literary) taste of the reading public remained unresolved, with no indication that this will change in time to come. The authors have not specifically discussed this phenomenon because it is not the topic of their work. Besides, they believe that only a wide interdisciplinary professional circle, composed of sociologists, psychologists, culturologists, philosophers and other experts, would be able to deal with it in an adequate manner. The authors believe that all the subjects involved in the community of book are interrelated. Libraries can quite rightly set certain formal requirements that publishers have to meet, such as high-quality printed and bound publications (since they pay required price for books), but no more than that. They do not have right to influence publishing policy, although it is a possible field of cooperation in terms of pointing to titles that are lacking in libraries and for which their users have needs. On the other hand, authors are opposed to interfering with acquisition policy of libraries and arbitrary determination of the purpose of libraries, especially from the positions of their own interests that tend to be presented as public. This is a field that could also be open for cooperation, but certainly within some other concept.

Keywords:
libraries, publishers, bookstores, readers, books, purchase of books, Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, legal regulation, acquisition policy, publishing policy

Full text (704 KB)