Book launch spotlighting publishing activity of Croats in New Zealand
On 26 October 2021, as part of the Year of Reading 2021 national programme run by the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media, the National and University Library in Zagreb hosted the launch of the 2021 book by the Associate Professor at the Department of Information and Communication Sciences of the Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Head of the Department’s Book and Publishing Section Ivana Hebrang Grgić and Professor at the Department and Head of the Department’s Librarianship Section Ana Barbarić presenting the publishing activity of Croats in New Zealand (Ni s kućom ni bez kuće).
Published by the Naklada Ljevak Croatian publishing company, the book provides detailed insight into the cultural and social role of Croats in New Zealand and brings stories about those of them who made significant contribution to the development of New Zealand’s society, at the same time managing to foster and protect Croatian heritage and tradition. The unique overview that the book offers includes a detailed chronological analysis of all forms of communication between Croats in New Zealand, ranging from oral tradition, first newspapers and books all the way to social networks.
After an introductory address by the Director General of the National and University Library in Zagreb Dr Ivanka Stričević, the book was presented by Dr Rebeka Mesarić Žabčić (consulting editor), Associate Professor at the University of Osijek Academy of Arts and Culture Nives Tomašević (editor), as well as by the authors.
It is always a pleasure for us to host all events presenting the activities of emigrant Croats. We are often unaware of how they live and of the way in which they are connected with their homeland, putting in invaluable efforts into preserving that connection and presenting Croatia’s immense cultural and natural heritage to the world. That effort is best evidenced by the written heritage resulting from their rich publishing activity. It is the most reliable witness of time and therefore this book’s special value lies in the unprecedent insight it provides into something that can hardly be conveyed otherwise, emphasised NSK Director General Dr Stričević.
As a particularly valuable addition, the book provides links and QR codes enabling access to online bibliographies of serial publications and books available on the website of the Croatian emigrant press project, as part of which the book was prepared, and on the NSK Digital Collections web portal.
“Ni s kućom ni bez kuće”, Zagreb: Naklada Ljevak (2021), by Ivana Hebrang Grgić and Ana Barbarić, presented at the National and University Library in Zagreb on 26 October 2021 as part of the Year of Reading 2021 national programme, run by the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media.
