Ukupne elektronske resurse Biblioteke dnevno koristi oko 20.000 dok čitaonice dnevno koristi i do 1.000 ljudi / The Library's total electronic resources are used on a daily basis by approximately 20,000 virtual users, while the reading rooms are virtuelnih korisnika, physically used by up to 1,000 people per day
of 1,424 Cyrillic manuscripts and charters from the 12 th to the 17 th centuries, a cartographic and graphic collection of 1,500 items, a collection of 4,000 mag- azine titles and 1,800 newspaper titles. Also perish- ing were a significant and insufficiently studied collec- tion of Turkish documents on Serbia, incunabula and old printed books, as well as entire correspondences of important personalities from the cultural and po- litical history of Serbia and Yugoslavia. All inventories and catalogues of the National Library also vanished.” “We are of course carrying out digitisation. That was even started by my father's generation. The Library's electronic catalogue contains about two and a half mil- lion entries. The Library's total electronic resources are used on a daily basis by approximately 20,000 virtual users, while the reading rooms are physically used by up to 1,000 people per day. In a certain sense, this li- brary of ours is a monument to that destroyed library.” Do you today possess modern techniques to ensure preservation? How do you feel as the guardian of such a treasure; did you ever dream that you could be such a guardian? “It never even crossed my mind. Books are written out of nostalgia for a home in outer space. There you will find your sorrows and desires, thoughts that pass through your head, as well as your faith and some kind of beauty, and modesty and sincerity... Books help you to find the place where your heart is buried and to dis- cover your secret name. It was in this very library that I wrote part of my notes on the Hungarian Secession
movement that found its way into my book “Tesla: A Portrait With Masks”, published in 2008.” Are you writing a new book? “I'm writing a novel about the life of a woman called Ozana Bolica. The novel begins in the Venetian Perast of the 17 th century, with a pirate attack and kidnap- ping. It continues in Tunisia, then moves to colonial America. It culminates back in Perast. That was an ep- och of encounters between Descartes, Baroque, per- secuted witches and religious wars, piracy under state protection [privateering] and mass slavery. It was then that the system of world trade was established. The word modernity was then created or renewed, what- ever that means. The novel will be called The Song of Three Worlds.”
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