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Montenegrin Bibliography (1494-1994)

The National Library of Montenegro “Đurđe Crnojević” as responsible for the development of library activities in  the  country,  launched  and  implemented  a  Digital  Montenegrin  Bibliography  project. All published volumes  of  the  retrospective  Montenegrin  Bibliography  1494-1994  (MB)  have  been  digitized. This enabled much simpler use and easier access to this extensive amount of bibliographic information. The realization of this project, which represents an important step in the further development of library and information system and support for the scientific information system in Montenegro, has been financed by the Ministry of Culture.

Digitized Montenegrin Bibliography 1494-1994 is available on the website:

 www.nbcg-digitalnabibliografija.me

History of the Montenegrin Bibliography

Retrospective national bibliographies arise from the pursuit of displaying the entire spiritual creativity of a nation,  expressed  in  the  form  of  printed  words  or  otherwise.  They  represent  a  unique  source  of information for the study of all aspects of social life.

Bearing in mind that many nations have developed the national – retrospective and current bibliographies a long time ago and that they represent an urgent scientific and cultural need of every developed society, the National Library of Montenegro launched in 1979 an initiative to implement a retrospective MB project, in order to compile everything about Montenegro and its people published in the form of monographs, periodicals, treatises, articles and literary supplements in serials and conference proceedings – in native and foreign languages, in one spot – between the covers of a single book set.

MB covers half a millennium long period of time, which starts with the first printed Cyrillic book in this part of Europe “Oktoih Prvoglasnik”, printed in the Crnojević Printing House in 1494, and ends in 1994. Apart from the books listed in the first volume, this edition comprises a list of serials in the second volume, covering the period from the first Montenegrin serial “Grlica”, issued in 1835, until 1994. The third volume is the  most  extensive  one,  as  it  compiles  selective  lists  of  articles  published  in  serials.  Fifteen  books covering the period 1494-1985 have been published to date, whereas the remaining three typescripts are to be issued soon to cover the period until 1994. The fourth volume contains bibliographies in foreign languages:  Russian,  Czech,  Italian  and  English. The Bibliography of Books on Montenegro in the Languages of Nations and Minorities from Former SFRY – until 1994 has been prepared and is expected to appear by the end of 2012.

Selection Criteria for MB

The Montenegrin Bibliography 1494-1994 is founded upon a wide scientific basis. Three selection criteria have been used for the inclusion of material: territorial, national and subject.

Under the territorial criterion, MB includes:

all books, brochures  and  printed  music  published  on  the  territory  of  Montenegro  since  1494 regardless of the language, alphabet and author’s ethnic origin (exempt from this rule are titles printed for the publishers registered elsewhere – after 1945);​all books, brochures and printed music published by Montenegrin publishers, but printed out of Montenegro;all official publications  printed  in  Montenegro,  as  well  as  those  published  by  Montenegrin publishers, but printed out of the country;all serials: gazettes, newspapers,  journals, almanacs, yearbooks, bulletins  and chronicles with supplements, commemorative editions of academies and associations, reports issued over a long period of time bearing continuous numbering, printed or published in Montenegro;

Selection  of  articles  and  contributions  in  serials  which  meet  the  criteria  defined  for  monographs  and serials.

Under the national criterion, the Montenegrin Bibliography comprises:

all works written by Montenegrins and other authors originating from Montenegro published out of Montenegro, regardless of the language and alphabet;works produced by printers of Montenegrin origin, printed abroad.

Following the subject criterion, MB comprises materials related to Montenegro and its people.

Structure of MB

MB is published in four volumes, each containing a number of books / issues, depending on the amount

of bibliographic material. The volumes are structured in the following way:

Volume I – monographs (books 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10);

Volume II – serials (books 1, 2);

Volume III – discussions, articles and literary contributions in serials (selective inclusion of works; books 1,

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15);

Vol. IV – ’Exteriorica’ – works by foreign authors relating to Montenegro and its people (selective inclusion; books 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Monographs are catalogued according to the international ISBD (M) standard, for serials ISBD (S) standard is used, whereas the entries in the third volume (articles) are catalogued in compliance with the then  valid  rules  applied  for  the  analytical  cataloguing  of  serials.  All  the  material  (except  Vol.  IV) is catalogued  and  classified  according  to  the  UDC  system.  International  standards  for  bibliographic description are not applied to Volume IV (foreign authors on Montenegro), however, the editors created bibliographic entries according the rules applied in their respective countries. Each book includes indexes of authors, translators, editors, subjects, identified initials, codes and pseudonyms, and lists of references and resources.

Procedures and Standards of the Montenegrin Bibliography Digitization

Over the three decades of hard work on the MB project, outstanding results have been achieved. Within the four volumes 32 books have been published on 15,030 pages of encyclopedic format. They list a total  of  229,611  bibliographic  entries  which  refer  to  incunabula,  paleotypes,  books,  serials,  and contributions in serials. This database represents the most comprehensive treasury of the Montenegrin creativity and an indispensable tool for scientific and other research work.

Digitization  of  the  Retrospective  Montenegrin  Bibliography  started  with  the  process  of  the  complete material scanning. The images of scanned pages are stored in JPG format, providing appropriate quality for scrolling and browsing. The pages containing indexes are transformed into textual files by means of software for optical character recognition. This allows various search and printout options, while at the same time the database and the implemented software tools meet users’ needs and offer the possibility of bibliographic editing.

Perl,  PHP  and  Javascript  are  the  languages  used  for  making  entries,   search  and  display  of  the bibliography, and the database type is MySQL. Presentation is made available online and in DVD format.

The database is searchable online, while the DVD version offers the possibility of navigation by selection among indexes and lists of initial letters given for each index. Searching and sorting are adjusted to the Cyrillic script of the bibliography. Both presentation formats provide simple search in such a way that the selected term easily leads to the corresponding entry. Bibliographic entry provides link to the scanned page which contains the required bibliographic record.