Violeta D. Milošević
Matična biblioteka „Ljubomir Nenadović“, Valjevo
ocvioleta@gmail.com

doi: 10.19090/cit.2021.39.47-56
No. 39 (November 2021), p. 47-56

Public Libraries and Protection of Cultural Heritage during Emergencies

Summary

Every state of emergency endangers libraries as institutions for the protection of cultural heritage, old and rare library materials, and other library funds categorized as materials of special importance. Risk management caused by floods, fires, earthquakes, landslides, and other natural disasters, pandemics, wars, and other emergencies caused by human activities, in terms of preventive action and development of plans for protection and rehabilitation of cultural heritage from disasters, has not yet been implemented in regular procedures in public libraries. The existing legal framework provides an optimal level of protection, but implementation is partial. The resources of public libraries are not sufficient to provide a quality level of protection of cultural heritage, primarily because library experts are not involved in the protection system. Disaster risk management in the field of cultural heritage requires the introduction of binding procedures, regular education, improvement of relations, and a stronger connection of all participants in the protection system while providing financial support. Due to all the above, this paper describes the legislative framework in the Republic of Serbia, and then the experience of the Valjevo library during the floods in 2014, in order to better observe the position of cultural institutions and the importance of further engagement in the area of risk prevention.

Keywords:

state of emergency, disaster risk management, public libraries, Valjevo, floods, library experts, cultural heritage, old and rare books, legal framework

Submitted: 6th January 2021
Correction to the manuscript: 26th January 2021
Accepted for publication: 7th February 2021

Public Libraries and Protection of Cultural Heritage during Emergencies by Violeta D. Milošević is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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