Zadar's Research Library is the second largest Croatian institution of this kind after the National University Library in Zagreb. It was founded in 1855 by local professor and benefactor Petar Aleksandar Paravija, and was originally in the Loggia on Narodni trg, moving into the present building, an attractive yellow building which used to be a barracks. It's the bedrock upon which not only Zadar's rich cultural and educational life rests, but also that of Croatia. Zadar was for a long time the administrative centre of Dalmatia, under many colonial powers. The documentation kept here, and in the Historical Archive (near St Dimitri's church) is the seed of knowledge of much of Croatia's legal and political past.