Bibliography of croatian authors on education of information professionals

Abstract

Purpose. The paper provides a bibliography of scientific and professional papers of Croatian authors on the education of information professionals in three branches of information and communication sciences: archives and documentation, librarianship, and museology. The aim of the paper is to provide quantitative and qualitative insights into Croatian scientific and professional production in the mentioned areas and to indicate its importance in the establishment of the field of information sciences in Croatia. Methodology. In order to find the relevant papers on the subject the following sources have been searched: the Croatian Scientific Bibliography, Hrčak-Portal of Sci-entific Journals of the Republic of Croatia, the catalog of the National and University Library of Zagreb, the bibliographic, citation and full text databases in the field of social sciences available through the Electronic Source Portal for the Croatian Academic and Scientific Community, and finally the Google Scholar search engine. In an effort to keep the bibliography as complete as possible, the lists of literature in the identified works were also searched, and for this reason, the bibliography can be considered to be made de visu. The collected bibliography entries were analyzed from the quantitative and qualitative perspectives as well as by the authorship, types of papers, and language. Findings. The quantitative analysis showed that the first papers appeared in the ear-ly 1950s, and that even then much thought was given to the education of information professionals. This interest intensified in the mid-1980s and has not faded since then, but rather has grown. The largest number of papers appeared in the first decade of the 21st century. The reasons should probably be found not only in the rapid development of information and communication technologies but also in the introduction of the Bologna process into the Croatian higher education institutions, and the consequent adaptations and changes that had to be made in the curriculum and education of information profes-sionals. The qualitative analysis has shown that a large number of papers were devoted to this topic. More than half of the papers were co-authored by two or more authors, which indicates good professional cooperation between the members of the Croatian professional and scientific community dealing with the issues of education of information professionals. The fact that a relatively large number of papers was presented at foreign conferences, and that a significant number of papers was written in English, indicate the importance of the contribution of Croatian authors to the understanding of this issue at the global level. Originality/value. The thematic bibliography of this type has not been made before. The paper is also a stimulus for a new generation of scientists and experts to further explore the topic of education of information professionals who should constantly work on their professional development and learn how to adapt to new information and communication technologies.