Slovenia (and Yugoslavia) were distinguished from other communist countries by greater openness and autonomy of business enterprises, which also applied to book publishers. Therefore, the range of books available was more diverse than elsewhere in eastern Europe. In addition, Slovenian publishers adopted many marketing approaches from the western European book markets as early as the 1970s and 1980s, innovatively adapting them to the local context. After Slovenia’s independence, nearly all old publishers thus successfully made the transition to capitalism, and many new ones were established. In combination with the rapid development of printing technology, these social and cultural changes have led to significant growth in newly published works. Alongside this, Slovenia has successfully retained and further developed its network of public libraries, from which readers borrow significantly more books than they buy. However, the size of the reading landscape has remained the same: over the past fifty years, approximately half of the Slovenian population has not been reading books. This article ends by concluding that this represents both a developmental problem and a challenge for Slovenia.
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