The purpose of this paper is to show how public libraries cooperate with publishers and specify what role and activities public libraries and publishers have individually. Because library users primarily seek and search for books and the publishers are the ones who are in charge of their existence their cooperation is very important. The paper shows how publishers and libraries participate in the cultural life of the community. The term cultural life of the community refers to the participation of majority of members of the community in a variety of cultural events organized by the library and the publisher, including the presentation of the books, discussions, workshops, literary evenings, and theatrical performances that can be based on individual books. The cooperation of publishers and libraries is mutually useful. To the libraries it is useful to hold events such as book presentations to stand out in the community and attract users, while to publishers and publishing houses it is useful to hold forums to promote themselves and the products they offer. In addition to cooperation which aims to raise awareness of the cultural community, cooperation that implements the technical activities is important for both publishers and libraries. This paper provides an overview of the importance of libraries and publishers, and explains their collaboration on technical tasks, but the main focus is on participation in the cultural life of the community. Such participation is presented and based on the review of activities of four public libraries from different Croatian regions.