Café Velvet - The first cafe in the world with a free virtual library

Café Velvet is the first café in the world with a virtual library, where guests have limitless access to digital books which they can read for free if they register and install the reading app on their smartphones or tablets.

If you like to read books while sipping your favourite coffee, visit Café Velvet – the first café in the world designated as a Free Reading Zone. This virtual library, with a hundred thousand books in several global languages and, of course, Croatian, can be read in digital format for free and without limit. The titles on offer include all sorts of books – from technical and scientific literature to popular fiction and various entertaining reads such as picture books and novellas for kids. All you need to do is install the reading app on any iOS or Android device and register via the access code sent to each visitor. After authorisation, you can download books without any restrictions, and create your own shelves within the application.

The Free Reading Zones (FREZ) project started in America in cooperation with publishers and the Israeli company behind the reading app, with the goal of transforming various public as well as private areas into zones where readers can have free access to books from all over the world. These may be parks, hospitals, trains, busses, airports, schools or bars and cafes, as is the case with Café Velvet. The head of FREZ, Mirela Rončević, has recognised this café as an ideal place to launch the project in Croatia. In agreement with the owners, she opened the world’s first virtual library in a café. Of course, the location is not random, since the coffee culture and the coffee drinking ritual in Croatia are deeply ingrained in social life and every invitation for a cup of coffee implies getting together with friends.  Apart from that, Café Velvet has already gained a reputation as a venue for various book promotions, so now it also offers guests the opportunity to read books for free.