| Directory Information | Catalogs, Bibliographies, and Indexes |
| History | Legislative Research |
| Organization | Reference and Reader Services |
| Buildings and Facilities | Automation |
| Collections |
Formal Name: National
Library in Prague
Name of Librarian: Vojtech Balik, PhD.
Address:
Klementinum 190, 110 01 Praha 1, Czech Republic
Phone: +42-2/24 22 95 00 /central/
+42 21 32 76 /Director/ Fax: +42-2/24 22
77 96
The history of the National Library goes back centuries to the 13th and 14th centuries when a Latin School merged into Prague University and Emperor Charles IV donated a collection of codices to the University. In 1556, Jesuits began to build their college--Clementinum--and in 1662 Charles University came under the control of the Jesuits, who moved its library to the Clementinum. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Jesuits had an important printing offie on the site. From 1773-1777 the Jesuits left the Clementinum, but the University and the Library remained there. The Empress Maria-Theresa declared the library collections for the Imperial and Royal Public and University Library. The Library became the legal deposit for Prague printers in 1782 and for all printers in the Czech territory in 1807. The Mozart Memorial, which contained manuscript and printed documents, was established in 1837. In 1918 the newly created Czechoslovak Republic took the Public and University Library under its control and the Czechoslovak Bibliographical Institute became a part of the Library. The Slavonic Library was established in 1924 and moved to the Clementinum in 1929. In 1935 the Act on the Legal Deposit Copy was issued for the whole territory of Czechoslovakia. During the German occupation, the Library continued as the Land and University Library, but with restrictions. In 1945, the National and University Library began to serve the public again, without restrictions. In 1958 several main Prague libraries were centralized into the State Library of the Czech Socialist Republic. In 1990 the name was changed into the National Library, following thus its tradition.
The organizational structure of the National Library includes
a Director and a Deputy Director whose position has recently been redefined
to include a stronger role as coordinator of library process as such.
The structure of the library has been based on four elementary library
process steps: acquisition - processing - storage and preservation - service
supply. A new division for collections and preservation has been
established. Tasks of permanent or ad hoc working groups and responsibility
of their heads across the hierarchical structure of the Library have been
more clearly defined. The Library also sees the task of referring
legislation as a vital role in its development.
Some of the major divisions of the Library are the Library Services
Division, Manuscripts and Old Prints Department, Music Department, National
Retrospective Bibliography Department, Automation Division;, Librarianship
Division, Publishing Division, Section for Hostivar Depository Library,
Slavonic Library, and the Central Economic Library.
The grounds of the Clementinum are considered some of the largest and most important monuments in Prague. Beginning in the 16th century as a church and college complex where there had once been a Dominican Monastery, the Clementinum's baroque appearance dates from 1578 with additional work in 1726. Over the years several famous architects and artists worked on the exterior and interior of this beautiful building. From 1924-1929 several adaptations were carried out which were necessary to accommodate modern library activities. Today, the Library is engaged in planning for the construction of the central repository at Hostivar which will solve the Library's space problems for the next few decades.
The National library is the largest library in the Czech Republic
and one of the oldest public libraries in Europe. It acquires, preserves
and makes available all bohemical literature, i.e. books and other documents
written in Czech or concerning Bohemia, published both in the Czech Republic
and abroad. Historical collections consist, most of all, of bohemical
and European works. The core of the manuscript collection is created
by a set of codices, donated to Prague University by the Emperor Charles
IV in 1366. However, Oriental manuscripts and Greek papyri are also
to be found there. Among the unique manuscripts in the Library are
the Vysehrad Codes from 1085, created for the coronation of the first Czech
King Vratislav; the Passional of the Abbess Kunhuta from 1312, manufactured
in a scriptorium of St George's Convent at Prague Castle; and the Velislav
Pictorial Bible from the 14th century.
Other collections in the National Library include the books and
writings of Jan Amos Komensky, the libraries of Bernardo Bolzano, F. X.
Salda, and Jaroslav Vlcek. The Library of the Counts of Kinski and
the Prague Lobkowitz Library have been preserved completely. The
centerpiece of the Music Department is Mozart's Memoria, the collection
of works, writings and letters of W. A. Mozart.
Affiliated with the national Library is the Slavic Library with
collections of specialized Slavic literature from all over the world and
with collections of original literary production of Slavic nations.
A part of A. F. Smirdin's Library is also kept in the Slavic Library.
Catalogs, Bibliographies, and Indexes
The National Centre of Bibliographic Information provides bibliographic and reference information, lists of literature from mechanized and classical information sources and selective dissemination of information (SDI). The Centre maintains a card index entitle "Articles in the Czech Periodicals 1945-1952. In addition it maintains several Czech databases including Czech Books since 1983, the Czech books announced to the ISBN Agency, the Books Published Since 1989, Foreign Bohemica in the National Library's holdings, Samizdat editions of Czech and Slovak Literature, Articles in Czech Periodicals and Newspapers Since 1991, Periodicals in the Czech Republic, Dissertations and Authors' Abstracts, and a Directory of the Publishers of the Czech Republic ISBN System. Two Czech CD-ROMs are the Memory of the World--149 manuscripts and rare prints in the National Library in Prague--and the Statutes of former Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, 1945-1993. The Centre also includes foreign bibliographic resources.
A major initiative of the National Library is more work on legislative matters. The Library produced a draft of special National Library Act and paid attention to taxes, legal deposit legislation, and was involved in discussion of the not-for-profit sector new legislation.
There are several reading rooms in the National Library. Among them is the General Reading Room which has been located in the summer refectory of the former Jesuit Collegium Clementinum since the 1928 reconstruction of the Library by the architect L. Machon. The refectory was built in the last third of the 17th century by the Italian architect Carlo Lurago and master-builder Domenico Orsi, later by Francesco Lurago. The hall is distinguished by a richly decorated vaulted ceiling, a fresco entitled "Jesus Visits the House of Lazarus" by Ignaz Raab, a rococo tiled (Dutch) stove dated 1762, and pseudo-baroque oak book-cases from the estate of the great Czech opera-singer Emma Destinn. The Scholars' Reading Room is open to scholars, professors and research workers and the UN Depository Library documents are accessible to all users; the Reading Room of the Music Department provides universal information services on music, music life, music documentation, and musicology; the Natural Science and Social Science Reading Room continues the traditions of the respective reading-rooms which existed in the sixties and seventies and the book collection has been gathered during the last several years and is being updated; the Reading Room of the English Library provides reference books and British periodicals; the Reading Room of the Periodicals Department offers recent editions of Czech and foreign periodicals as well as a selection of older Bohemica journals and newspapers; and the Reading Room of the Department of Manuscripts and Old Prints is the location of manuscripts, incunabula, and old Bohemical prints as well as some old non-Bohemical prints.
The Automation Division was founded in 1985 with the aim of automating
the library-bibliographical processes and applying these results to other
library. The outcome was the Modular Automated Library System (MAKS)
as a specific superstructure of the CDS/ISIS system.
Today the MAKS is being used by over 300 institutions in the
Czech and Slovak republic. The current conception of automated National
Library is, besides the daily used MAKS, being developed on the new library
system ALEPH purchased from the Israeli company Ex-Libris from the sources
of the Andres W. Mellon Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Financial sources of both foundations were provided to four major libraries
in the Czech and Slovak republic in order to build the base of the Czech
and Slovak Library Information Network (CASLIN).
The Automation Division also functions as CASLIN headquarters
and takes an important role in localization of the sytem and development
of standards necessary for the realization of the national Union Catalogue
as a basis of cooperation of the libraries in the Czech republic.