PRINT COLLECTION OF THE NATIONAL AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY IN ZAGREB: DOCUMENTATION, DISPLAYING AND THE PROJECTION OF THE PERMANENT PRESENTATION

The diversity of the material of the Print Collection and the many users of different interests, and their increasingly numerous requirements, often very speciÞ c requirements, have resulted in the approach to the material being such that it is sought physically (and so damaged) as little as possible. Whatever principle is used for storing the material, searches according to a given topic or subject will always contain the danger of its physical impairment. When we interpret a picture in words, as a visual work, then every observer, every interpreter, from the point of art history, included through the comparability of picture and language. This relation is the base of every understanding in the area of the interaction of visual and verbal. The basic precondition for every treatment is standardisation, irrespective of whether it is in terminology or standardisation of the actual processing. This is particularly to the fore in the Þ eld of computerisation, in the age of globalisation, conditioned by the new technologies. For us to be able to communicate better with each other there has to be a common language for this communication. In the treatment of visual material, this joint or common language resides in the standards that relate to the unambiguousness of processes in the treatment, a precisely established order of data, rules that will be applied, and the manner of Þ nding the data about the material we have processed. Without reliance on standards, it is very difÞ cult to have successful communication. Every visual work of art constitutes an indivisible whole of three elements: of content, form and material. Without the unity of these three elements there is no proper description of the visual work, which means that we have to transfer the visual elements and messages into their meanings in language, and the linguistic concepts with which we express the contents of the visual art work have to be in a certain way settled and used. When it is visual material that is concerned, one should not ignore the deÞ nitions of the genre, which mark various categories of material hrough which the genre of pictorial types is determined, the method of projection, the manner and purpose of the depiction, and the deÞ nitions for the physical characteristics with which we label the material, differentiating it according to the process of techniques in which it was created, its shape and size, as well as other physical features of the visual material. Some visual material is also important because of its artistic value and because of the subject. Users know very well whether they want to see examples of genres, or epictions in which the genre and physical characteristic is the subject. Traditionally in our museums and collections visual material is found according to contents and artists, while the approach according to genre and physical characteristics is somewhat neglected. So in the processing of the visual material, we always should bear in mind the answers to the questions: Who? What? When? Where? and How? – it was created, and with what intent. Some people will Þ nd it important whether something is a chalk drawing, some people want to see copies of 16th century etchings, while some look for depictions of Diocletian’s Palace, irrespective of technique, author, period. We need, then, to analyse and describe the important of the visual works, classify and deÞ ne the kind of im- portance the picture might have. In order to do this, semantic theories in art and language as well as some theories of classiÞ cation are very important. This is a mere hint of what is necessary for the description, in terms of form and content, of the visual work