Ksenija Tokić, Ivo Tokić

Tourism potential of libraries

Abstract:
Libraries are usually centres of cultural life especially in small communities and, in tourism, they could become places of cultural interaction between the culture of visitors and the culture of the local population. By storing spiritual and intellectual works, they testify to the cultural heritage of places and allow access to various works of art, promoting awareness of cultural identity. On the other hand, local communities, through libraries, gain insight into cultural achievements at a global level. Beside their collections, libraries also have a wide range of other resources that could be attractive to tourists. The purpose of this paper was to find out which library resources in the developed tourism region of Croatian Adriatic have the potential to become either tourist attractions or tourism services. In the research a qualitative approach was applied with the purpose of describing, deepening and expanding knowledge of the potential of libraries in tourism. Primary research was applied to gather data on library resources with tourism potential.