Research and Development Department

By performing its functions as the parent library, the Matica Srpska Library coordinates the library and information activities in the Province of Vojvodina. The Library functions as a parent library for the academic and scientific libraries and in cooperation with the parent libraries from Vršac, Zrenjanin, Kikinda, Novi Sad, Pančevo, Sombor, Sremska Mitrovica, and Subotica, it monitors and assists the work and development of the library network in Vojvodina. 

A new web application is used to collect data on the work of libraries in Vojvodina, within the Library Network of Serbia. The Library Network database is located on the servers of the National Library of Serbia, and libraries fill out online questionnaires through authorized accounts. The Matica Srpska Library provides professional assistance to academic and scientific libraries in Vojvodina in filling out statistical questionnaires. It is in charge of checking and confirming them in the Library Network database. 

Research and Development Department prepares anual publications Analiza rada visokoškolskih biblioteka u Vojvodini (Analysis of the Work of Academic Libraries in Vojvodina) and Analiza rada narodnih biblioteka u Vojvodini  (Analysis of the Work of Public Libraries in Vojvodina). It organizes librarian certification examinations and approved accredited programmes within the continuing professional development of employees in the library and information service. The Department performs regular annual supervision of the professional work of libraries within the parent library functions. Professional seminars for librarians at academic and scientific libraries are held twice a year. Program rada Biblioteke Matice srpske (Work Programme of the Matica Srpska Library), Izveštaj o radu Biblioteke Matice srpske (Report on the Work of the Matica Srpska Library) and Vesti (News), the Library’s newsletter, are being prepared and published annually.

Support for the processes of union cataloguing is organized within the Department; bibliographies and catalogues are printed from the electronic catalogue, as well as inventories and lists of publications. The configuration of servers, computers and networks, user accounts, and software for the Digital MSL are maintained and the digitization of library materials is implemented in the Matica Srpska Library.

Reference Centre

The Reference Centre was established in 1985. The activities of the Centre are diverse and include the storage and cataloguing of doctoral dissertations and magister theses defended at the University of Novi Sad, citation search for scientific workers, interlibrary loan from abroad, topical searches in foreign databases, participation in the development of the international AGRIS database, and editing of AGROVOC thesaurus.

The Centre also makes citation lists on demand and a bibliography of citations for researchers in Science Citation Index, in series for natural sciences (since 1945), for social sciences (since 1956), and for arts and humanities (since 1975), as well as in the conference proceedings from all these series since 2001. Until 1980, searches were done in the paper version of the Index. These editions for the period 1980–1995 are available on compact discs, and from 1996 onward, online access to this database has been provided.

The Centre also makes topical searches on demand in foreign databases available through KoBSON (Serbian Library Consortium for Coordinated Acquisition) The Matica Srpska Library is one of the co-founders of the Serbian Library Consortium for Coordinated Acquisition of databases and electronic services, as well as foreign journals in paper form. Over twenty services with about 35,000 electronic journals and nearly 160,000 electronic books are available on the KoBSON website.

The interlibrary loan system is used for obtaining texts from abroad. Books and copies of papers are ordered from SUBITO (a document delivery service of research libraries in Germany, Austria and Switzerland), the British Library, and other national or special libraries in the world.

In the Reference Centre, inputs are prepared and entered into the international AGRIS database.

AGROVOC thesaurus has been edited and translated from English into Serbian since 2020.

Working hours with users:

On working days
from 7:30 a.m. to 14:30 p.m.