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National Bibliography for Bosnia and Hercegovina

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Because of Bosnia and Hercegovina’s complex history and the fact that they share a language with Serbs and Croats, Serbian, Croatian and former Yugoslav bibliographies are all of potential relevance for locating B & H materials. Please see the appropriate web pages for national bibliography for those countries. The Austrian National Library online catalog will also be of interest to those looking for B & H items. Bosnia’s bibliographic history is not overwhelming in the number of publications and to date a comprehensive retrospective bibliography of materials has not yet been produced, but there are works annotated below that cover some of B & H’s publishing history and Bosnia’s national library is engaged in the production of both a current national bibliography and some retrospective works as well. Bosnia’s national library has a sad history. It was not founded until 1945, but it had as its basis several older collections plus the right to obligatory copies based on depository laws. They began to convert their holdings into an online format in the late 1980’s, but that effort literally went up in flames with the destruction of the library in 1992 during the war. About 90% of their collection was destroyed. A new online catalog did not become available until 1998. It is described below.

Bosnia and Hercegovina has started to produce its own national bibliography in three parts: Bosanskohercegovacka bibliografija monografskih publikacija. Niz A for monographs, Bosanskohercegovacka bibliografija serijskih publikacija. Niz B for periodicals, and Bosanskohercegovacka bibliografija priloga i clanaka u serijskim publikacijama. Niz C for articles from selected Bosnian periodicals. Unfortunately, the University of Illinois does not hold any of these titles in its collection, but you can read more about them at the website of the National and University Library of B & H which produces them. Coverage of monographs and articles begins with 1992 and coverage of serial titles begins with 1997. From 1950 through the early 1990’s B & H publications were contained in the Yugoslav national bibliography Bibliografija Jugoslavije: knjige, brosure i muzikalije which is described on the page for National Bibliography of Former Yugoslavia. Other materials annotated on that page also contain works from B & H.

For further reading on Bosnian and Hercegovinian bibliography, including citations to many early bibliographies, see the article entitled “Bibliografija” in Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, volume 1 [U of I Library Call Number: Yugoslav Reference 914.97 En16]. There is a section devoted just to Bosnia. To read more about recent publishing trends and online resources in Former Yugoslavia see Slavic & East European Information Resources, 1:2/3, 2000. This special issue is entitled “Publishing in Yugoslavia’s Successor States” and most of the articles, including the one on Bosnia and Hercegovina by Janet Crayne, have a brief discussion of the current state of bibliography and libraries in each of the countries. Using outside sources for information about B & H bibliography is important since the Slavic collection of the University of Illinois is not strong in this area.

Online Resources

Nacionalna i Univerzitetska Biblioteka Bosne i Hercegovine Online Catalog.

URL: http://www.cobiss.ba/

The library catalogs of the former republics of Yugoslavia have a common structure and interface (COBISS) as a result of the large scale project to share cataloging information. Thus, the catalogs for Bosnia and Hercegovina, Slovenia, Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro all have a similar structure which is fairly easy to search. The use of diacritics is not required but can be helpful in the B & H catalogs to sort through long lists of citations and there are both Serbo-Croatian and English language interfaces to facilitate use by foreign searchers. The entries can be viewed in a short form or in the “MARC” structure often useful for libraries. Bosnia and Hercegovina’s catalogs have been available as part of this system since 1998.

The list of catalogs that appear as part of the COBISS.bh system begins with a union catalog (Uzajamna bibliografsko-katalozna baza COBIB.bh) which incorporates the holdings of over 50 B & H libraries. There are over 1200 links to e-resources, 340,000 book, 10,000 articles, 7500 journals, CDs/DVDs, etc. in the union catalog; there are more than 400,000 records total. The National and University Library catalog (NUBBIH) is one of the catalogs that may be searched as part of the union catalog or individually. Each record in the union catalog includes links to the institutions that hold the title. The image below reproduces an record from the union catalog for a book by Ivo Andric which is held by the National Library. Note that the image shows the COBISS interface as well as the way holding libraries are displayed at the bottom of the record.

Example record from Bosnia and Hercegovina COBISS

There is no information in the catalogs about the number of records in the National Library catalog, but one must assume that there are fewer than in other national library catalogs from Former Yugoslavia due to the war which resulted in a loss of about 90% of the National Library’s collection. But there are depository laws in place so the library’s collection is growing and is still valuable for more recent materials. The catalogs of the other Former Yugoslav republics will also contain B & H materials so they should not be overlooked.

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Bibliographies

Bibliografija knjiga i periodicnih izdanja stampanih u Hercegovini, 1873-1941.

Stitic, Lina; Dizdar, Hamid. Mostar: Izdanje Savjeta za kulturu Narodnog odbora Sreza Mostar, 1958. 132 p.
U of I Library Call Number: International & Area Studies Ref Slavic – Former Yugoslavia Q.016.4395 St5b

Arranged chronologically by publication date, this bibliography presents citations for over 800 Hercegovinian books, books in series, and periodicals from 1873 through 1940. The bibliography is divided into 2 sections, books and periodicals. Each section has its own indexes including author, periodical title, and subjects. The series are listed at the end of the books section along with a compilation of books whose date of publication are unknown. The introduction is an overview of the history of Hercegovinian publishing. There is no statement in the introduction to indicate how comprehensive this work may be. See the image below for the serial Srpski vjesnik which was published in Mostar from 1897-1903.

The serial Srpski vjesnik entry
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Bosansko-hercegovacka bibliografija knjiga i brosura, 1945-1951.

Pejanovic, Djordje. Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1953. 271 p.
U of I Library Call Number: Main Stacks 015.4395 Sa7b

Over 1700 Bosnian and Hercegovinian books and brochures from 1945-1951 are arranged in this bibliography in a classified subject order. The introduction states that for certain years of coverage and for brochures the bibliography is not comprehensive. It also proffers some interesting statistics on B & H publishing before 1945. One of the highlights of this work is a fold-out table at the back which shows publishing statistics by subject and year for 1945-1951. Also at the back is a list of title by series heading. The is an index for names. See the entry below for the first item listed under the subject of Philology.

The entry for the first item listed under the subject of Philology

This work was followed by a bibliography covering 1952 entitled Bosanskohercegovacka bibliografija knjiga za 1952. godinu, but U of I lacks this volume. In 1977 a regularly produced national bibliography Bibliografija bosanskohercegovacke knjige for B & H began to appear. It was produced by the Narodna i univerzitetska biblioteka Bosne i Hercegovine in Sarajevo and ran from 1977-1984. U of I lacks this title as well. For more details on the national bibliography the sources mentioned in the introduction.