The main task of the Library of the State Archives in Pazin (the DAPA) is to ensure the publishing of additional sources related to the history of institutions and archival material. The main users of the library are the employees of the DAPA and the users of the archival material of the DAPA. In the beginning there was not a defined policy for acquiring books, but the books were brought to the Library without selection together with the archival material that was found outside the archive. During that first period a significant number of old books, published before 1835 (today gathered in the Collection of Old Books) came to the Library. From the 80’s until now the librarian collection has been expanded by taking into consideration the users’ needs as much as possible.
The Librarian Collection is divided into seven parts:
- The Reference Collection includes encyclopaedia, dictionaries, lexicons and other reference books and it is used by all types of users. It is situated in the Reading Room so it is accessible to all its users.
- The Collection of Archival Literature includes monographic and serial publications. Because of the importance of this collection to the employees of the Archives, we try to acquire all the publications related to archiving published in Croatia. We acquire some foreign publications by interchanging, for example from the Italian publisher Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici (Saggi, Sussidi, Fonti…).
- The Collection of official publications is of special importance for users studying the history of institutions, the descendants of those who created the archival material and the archivists of the DAPA. The most complete part inside this collection is the collection of official publications issued by local and regional administration in Istria after 1945. The Library owns a fairly rich collection of official newspapers of The First and The Second Austrian Administration (1797–1806, 1813-1918), The Italian administration (1918–1943) and the Allied Military Government (1945–1947).
- The Regional Collection “Histrica” is equally important for both users and archivists and it also contains journals and books. As part of this collection, all material related to Istria, regardless of the field, is collected, preserved and processed, which enables a more detailed study of archival material.
- The Collection of Old Books contains publications published before 1835, most of which have not yet been processed.
- The General part of the Fonds contains historical material about Croatia and further.
- Tugomil Ujčić’s Collection contains Professor Tugomil Ujčić’s rich collection of books and journals, composed by over 3,500 volumes of various topics. The publications are mainly written in Italian.
The collections of the Archival Library are accessible in the Reading Room. Only the Reference Collection, situated in the Reading Room, can be accessed freely. As for the other collections, there are certain rules which must be observed. Publications cannot be borrowed from the DAPA. For users consulting the archival material in the Reading room there is an employee at their disposal.
