Library programming represents one of the ways in which public libraries fulfill their mission, promote their collections, encourage lifelong learning, attract visitors, and connect with the local community. To plan such events, however, it is important to know the visitors for whom libraries want to organize events, especially for literary events that, in addition to libraries, are also organized by bookstores. The purpose of the master's thesis is to determine the characteristics of literary event visitors in libraries and bookstores and how events in libraries and bookstores are compared in terms of content and performance. The survey included a total of 16 literary events in the Ljubljana City Library, Library Mirana Jarca Novo mesto, Konzorcij bookstore and Bookstore Goga. In order to compare the realization of events as well as participants’ behavior, the observation method was used. To create visitor profiles – so called personas, which could contribute to the future programming of literary events, semi-structured interviews were performed with participants of the visited literary events. An analysis of 37 interviews revealed 8 personas, some of them common to both libraries and bookshops, others specific to one or another environment. Other results showed that institutions mostly had good promotional descriptions of literary events and that the largest number of visitors was recorded in transit-type event areas. Important differences between the course of literary events in libraries and bookstores were not observed. The responsiveness and interaction of the participants was, to a large extent, influenced by the ability of the guest or moderator. A large number of regular visitors were recorded in libraries, while the bookstores were dominated by visitors who rarely attend literary events.
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