ZAGREB, Croatia — Finding its niche beside many well-developed publishing houses, in a society where the Bible has not stopped being available, is the major task facing the young Interconfessional Croatian Bible Society.
It is a small Bible Society consisting of one full-time person, Damir Lipovsec, who is the Executive Secretary, and he works from a temporary office – a small, one-room apartment on the fifth floor which has been let to the Bible Society until better premises can be found.
Again temporarily, the Bible Society uses a garage underneath the new Franciscan monastery as its warehouse. But with larger shipments of Scriptures expected this year, it is going to have to find a larger warehouse soon. The UBS has supplied the Executive Secretary with a vehicle.
But the main factor facing the Bible Society is that of the book market itself. As a marked contrast to the situation in many of the former Soviet Union countries, Croatia has a developed publishing industry and the Bible has been widely available, even though the communist era, at the many booksellers.
Sadly the prices of many of the books put them beyond the pockets of most people, and the book trade appears to be suffering something of a recession, with bookshops forced into selling other commodities and shelves sitting empty.
In this context the Interconfessional Croatian Bible Society has to carefully define its role and scope. Offering a broader range of materials, including children's Bible books and Scriptures specifically aimed at certain sections of the population or covering specific topics, is being discussed and planned.
The Bible Society has on order 10,000 copies of the Stvarnost edition of the Bible for both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. These will be delivered in April 1997, and there is also a plan to produce this Bible in a smaller format within the next two years. 10,000 IBT Children's Bibles in Croatian are currently available and distribution of these began at the end of last year.