Miljenko LAPAINE, Ivka KLJAJIC

It is a vital need of every nation to have a systematically compiled and published bibliography of all the persons who contributed to the development of its material and spiritual life in the course of its centuries-long history. Certain nations have already produced handbooks of this sort, while others are still engaged in their production. The complexity of the task is best illustrated by the fact that compilation of such a handbook may last for several decades.

Cartography is a discipline which is concerned with the foundation, production, promotion of and research into maps. Cartographers are persons who are engaged in cartography. The category of Croatian cartographers is so conceived as to comprise Croats or persons of Croatian descent who lived all over the world and were engaged in the field of cartography, persons of other ethnicities who were, irrespective of their country of residence, born in Croatia, as well as foreigners who lived and worked in Croatia and contributed to cartography. The above definition has been taken over from a project on Croatian cartographers that has been carried out in the Institute of Cartography at the Faculty of Geodesy, Zagreb University since 1995 (Lapaine et al. 1995).

The last decade saw a growing interest in the research into the history of Croatian cartography and biographical information on the persons who contributed to its development, which is clearly visible from the fact that apart from a great number of papers published in periodicals and symposium proceedings a large number of catalogues accompanying map exhibitions and monographs treating particular areas or particular historical periods were produced.

The data collected served as a basis for a database containing biographical and bibliographical data that was compiled in the Institute of Cartography at the Faculty of Geodesy of the University of Zagreb (Kljaic, 2001). The database was created in such a way as to make it possible for a user to carry out querying using various keywords and sorting commands, to rearrange the existing data or feed into it the new ones. The database, which now contains information on over 800 persons, is still being completed and updated. While the remaining portion of gathered material still needs to be processed, it is certain that new, up to now unknown, data and sources will be discovered. Thus, from a theoretical point of view, the work on this task seems to have no end.

We hope that our database on Croatian cartographers will be, with the help from our readers, further completed and enriched. All the remarks and additional information will be gratefully considered.

References

Klajic, I. (2001): Croatian Cartographers, Master's thesis (in Croatian), University of Zagreb, Faculty of Geodesy.

Lapaine, M., Lovric, P., Francula, N., Franges, S., Vucetic, N. (1995): Croatian Cartographers, Project (in Croatian), University of Zagreb, Faculty of Geodesy, Zagreb.