National Institute of the Republic of Serbia
ὅδε οἶκος, ὦ ἑταῖρε, μνημεῖον ἐστιν ζωῶν τῶν σοφῶν ἀνδρῶν, καὶ τῶν ἔργων αὐτῶν
Text prepared by Maja Novaković, MA, and Dejan Vukelić, MA
In late 1995, the Mathematical Institute of SASA launched a pilot initiative to present two collections from the Belgrade City Museum — the collection of old maps and engravings, and the collection of 19th–century photographs — to the public through new electronic media. The result of the project was a CD containing digital scans of maps, engravings, and photographs, audio recordings of music related to the history of Belgrade, and video clips showing contemporary views of locations depicted in the engravings and photographs.
The eCatalog of Cultural Monuments in Serbia was created through the joint efforts of a multidisciplinary team from the National Centre for Digitisation. Launched in 2004, the project sought to establish a model for developing a digital repository of cultural monuments in Serbia, as well as for digitising the accompanying documentation. By digitising cultural resources — many of which cannot be adequately presented in traditional print publications — and making them accessible online, the project has contributed to the preservation, accessibility, and study of cultural heritage. The catalog integrates records from various Serbian heritage institutions and includes bibliographic references for further research. It currently contains documentation on 1300 cultural monuments across Serbia.
The digitisation of Serbian mathematical journals began in 1995 with the oldest and most significant one, Publications de l’Institut Mathématique (launched in 1932). With the growing use of the Internet, an online database offering free access to full-text mathematical journals was launched in 2002. Today, ELIB includes a wide range of journals, such as Bulletin of International Mathematical Virtual Institute, Computer Science and Information Systems, Filomat, Kragujevac Journal of Mathematics, Matematički Vesnik, Matematički kolokvijum, Nastava matematike, The Teaching of Mathematics, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, VisMath, Yugoslav Journal of Operations Research, and Zbornik radova Matematičkog instituta, among others — amounting to around 1400 issues and 19,000 full-text articles. Journal presentations are dynamically generated from the database and can be searched by author, title, keywords, section titles, and terms from abstracts, making ELIB a key resource for accessing Serbian mathematical literature.
Serbia–Forum is a platform developed by the Mathematical Institute of SASA for the presentation, documentation, and cataloging of cultural heritage. The portal is used by several national cultural institutions. For example, the National Library of Serbia uses the platform for the Digital National Library of Serbia, which includes books, old manuscripts, periodicals, cartographic material, etc. Within Serbia–Forum, presentations of national heritage digitisation projects, implemented by the Institute either independently or in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture, are regularly published. These include projects from Kosovo and Metohija, Arilje, Mileševa, Smederevo, Bač, etc.
The digital presentation of the cultural heritage of Novi Pazar is the result of efforts aimed at preserving and presenting digitised content and enhancing its accessibility through the creation of a multilingual digital guide. The digitisation of certain cultural monuments and sites — including, among others, Stari Ras with Sopoćani, the Novi Pazar Fortress with its hammam, the Stara čaršija, the Altun–alem Mosque, and the Jewish cemetery — nurtures the multiculturalism of this area and provides guidelines for understanding and inclusion of minority cultural groups. This presentation enables the general public to access the cultural heritage of Novi Pazar with the aim of preserving, promoting, and presenting this heritage.
The digitisation of the journal Filmske sveske (Film Volumes) is the first endeavour of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in the field of digital humanities with the aim of preserving important segments of film theory and thought in Serbia. The project was created in synergy between the Faculty of Dramatic Arts and the Mathematical Institute of SASA. The content of Filmske sveske consists of 84 issues that provide a detailed account of the main lines of development within film theory worldwide, with special reference to domestic film and theoretical production. The importance of this project is manifold. The digitised journal serves both as a repository of information and as evidence of the growing awareness of its significance as part of intellectual, theoretical, and cultural heritage.
The project “Documents on the Foreign Policy of the Kingdom of Serbia — 1903–1914” – digitisation and Internet presentation was realised in cooperation with the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Mathematical Institute of SASA, and with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Information. It is a digital presentation of the edition of the same name, created over a period of more than three decades. The material collected was critically processed by renowned historians and archival experts. The edition mostly refers to the diplomatic correspondence of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Serbia in the period between the May Coup and the outbreak of the First World War. Altogether, it contains seven books, with 25 volumes and 42 tomes, and about 31,000 pages. The process of digitisation has made this source, of first-class importance for understanding the international position and socio-political circumstances in Serbia, more visible and accessible to both the scholarly and the general public.
This project presents a comprehensive digital repository of the mathematical and scientific works of Academician Branislav Petronijević (1875–1954). A distinguished philosopher and mathematician, Petronijević authored more than 400 publications, many of which were originally published abroad in German, French, and English. His writings encompass mathematical analysis, geometry, logic and algebra, mechanics and physics, cosmography, as well as the philosophy and history of mathematics and the exact sciences. Drawing on his Résumé des travaux philosophiques et scientifiques (1896–1936), the repository features a chronologically organised bibliography and provides digital access to his works, making a significant part of Petronijević’s scientific legacy accessible to a wider research community. This initiative was made possible through the support of the Library of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Audiovisual Archive and Centre for Digitisation of SASA, the National Library of Serbia, Matica srpska, the University Library “Svetozar Marković,” and several international partners.
Virtual Museum of Old Computers and Devices
The Virtual Museum of Old Computers and Devices is a mobile application developed to present, preserve, and promote the technological heritage housed at the Mathematical Institute of SASA in Belgrade. The physical Museum of Old Computers and Devices was established in 2020 at the initiative of Dr Zoran Ognjanović and Dr Vanja Korać. Located at the MISASA, it features a unique collection of historical computing devices, including iconic models such as the NEC D8088D, ZX Spectrum 48k, and Commodore 64. The collection comprises items donated or gifted by Institute members and collaborators, as well as devices acquired and preserved by the Institute over the years. The virtual museum extends the mission of the physical exhibition into the digital environment. Through the mobile application, users can explore detailed descriptions, technical specifications, and historical context of individual devices.
The Mathematical Institute of SASA maintains a growing digital collection of rare and historical books, spanning the 18th to the 21st centuries. This electronic resource preserves significant works in mathematics, physics, logic, and related disciplines, making them accessible to researchers, students, and the wider public. Among the oldest digitised titles are Ruđer Bošković’s Elementorum Universae Matheseos (1757) and Elementi Di Matematiche Pure (1775), alongside works by Diderot and d’Alembert, Vasilije Damjanović, and Zaharije Orfelin. The 19th–century collection includes Serbian publications by Atanasije Stojković, Jovan Došenović, Dimitrije Nešić, and Bogdan Gavrilović. The 20th– and 21st–century corpus features works by Kosta Stojanović, Milutin Milanković, Mihailo Marković, Dragoš Cvetković, and others. Together, these digitised editions form an invaluable repository of Serbia’s scientific and cultural heritage.
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3D model of a bronze leaf, a piece of furniture, Bregovina, Prokuplje, 6th century, National Museum of Toplica, Prokuplje |
Rogerio Boscovich, Elementorum universae matheseos, Venetiis 1757, MISASA Library |