Pančevo is certainly an exception among the Serbian towns, both by the number of cultural institutions, and the fact that back in 2010 it adopted the Strategy for Cultural Development of the City. In Serbia, the cultural policy of the State and local governments is still only a desire. There is no harmony and agreement about what our common interest as a civilized and cultural community is, while the insufficient cooperation between institutions of culture and education in some towns makes a particularly negative impact on the formation of reading taste of young people, who are the future users of library services.

Public libraries, for which the State has been conducting interventional purchase of books from publishers for almost fifteen years now, are on slippery ground which is undermined not only by the lack of strategic directions of development, but also by problematic legislation, unattainable standards, undetermined criteria, poverty and ad hoc relationships with publishers. How to act responsibly and thoughtfully in library acquisitions – how to reconcile quality and quantity, harmonize procurement with the level of use of library funds and coordinate it with the publishing policy, take into account users’ wishes and set limits on the trivialization of the fund, how to achieve actuality and timeliness considering procurement and finance, and how to develop the role of libraries in the formation of literary taste of children and the young and in promoting good books... these are just some of the issues for modern librarians to deal with.

The section Theme in the latest number of Čitalište is dedicated to the current relations between libraries and publishers, but it inevitably had to include a broader thematic, historical and theoretical aspects. Hence it includes the contributions Professionalisation of Relationship Between Publishers and Authors on the Example of The Jovanović Brothers Bookstore by Žarko Vojnović and The Importance of Literary Canon: Parameters and Evaluation by Vladislava Petković Gordić. In their text Libraries and Publishers: The Omega Point, Goran Trailović and Dragana Sabovljev are trying to draw attention to the need for establishing a strategic partnership between librarians and publishers. For the benefit of readers, and in favor of this view, Čitalište brings a report from the meeting Purchasing Policy of Libraries and Implementation of Purchase of Publications for Libraries by the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, held in the Pančevo City Library on September 7, 2015.

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