Regional Libraries

The regional library acts as coordinator to other libraries of its region and as a provider of expert advice, information, training, analytical and research services, methodological assistance and consultancy, and it cooperates in introducing new technologies. Regional libraries are recipients of legal deposit for the region, and they cooperate with the National Library of the Czech Republic in developing the Union Catalogue of the Czech Republic and processing the Czech National Bibliography. Regional libraries build and provide access to regional information databases, and coordinate the regional bibliographic system.

In cooperation with other big public libraries in its region, the regional library provides support services to public libraries in small localities, e.g. the acquisition and cataloguing of books, library staff training, IT maintenance, etc. It receives special subsidies for these purposes from its regional administration.

Central Bohemia Region

Central Bohemia Research Library at Kladno

https://www.svkkl.cz

The State Research Library at Kladno is the largest library in Central Bohemia, and it also serves as a municipal library. It was founded as a public library in 1897.

In 1967 it was established as a special library for the region of Central Bohemia, two years later it began to receive regional deposit copies and in 1979 deposit copies of books and serials published nationwide. At present, the library holds 606 thousand items, has 5 thousand users and it loans 211 thousand per annum. The Library keeps a special collection of maps and guidebooks, and an extensive collection of Central Bohemian regional literature. The library offers lending, reference, and copy services. A fully automated library system has gradually been developed in the Advanced Rapid Library programme environment. The Library keeps a regional centre of tourist traffic and civil information, and it is a member of the Association of Tourist Information Centres (ATIS).

The Central Bohemia Research Library at Kladno is the publisher of Čtenář (The Reader), a professional journal circulated primarily in the Czech public libraries.

Prague Region

Prague Municipal Library

https://www.mlp.cz

The Prague Municipal Library is the regional library for the Prague Region. It has served the public continuously since it was founded in 1891. The Prague Municipal Library is a public general library with over 2 million items and 195 thousand users who borrowed 7.6 million items in 2004. It has 48 branch libraries and 3 mobile libraries. It prepares comprehensive information on new books for libraries run by municipal boroughs, catalogues new acquisitions and makes catalogue records for them and assists them in stock revision. It offers exchange sets of books to smaller libraries in order to enrich their holdings. It provides advisory and consultancy services to librarians from local libraries, and organizes training courses for them with emphasis on information and communication technologies.

South Bohemia Region

South Bohemia Research Library in České Budějovice

https://www.cbvk.cz

The Research Library of South Bohemia in České Budějovice is a comprehensive research library providing access to all types of domestic and foreign information sources. It offers lending, reference and other library services, including access to the Internet and electronic databases.

The Library keeps a large collection of contemporary and historical regional literature, its regional electronic format information database being under development.

The most important part of the Library's holdings of more than 1.3 million volumes consist of manuscripts and early printed books dating from the 12th century to 1800. The library is also in possession of the former Cistercian monastery at Zlatá Koruna where a literary exhibition on the history of literature in the south of Bohemia since the 12th century is on display. The monastery is a National Cultural Monument.

The Library provides training in modern information technologies to general users and advanced training courses for specialists. The Library uses the T Series automated system.

Plzeň Region

Plzeň Region Study and Research Library

https://www.svkpl.cz

It is a comprehensive library with approximately 1.7 million items, half of which are books and the other half special documents. It maintains an almost complete collection of domestic patent certificates, technical standards, CDs, video and audio cassettes and CD-ROMs. It is developing its collections with acquisitions of domestic and foreign literature in the fields of study taught at the universities of Plzeň and of traditional West Bohemian industries.

The library puts on cultural events, exhibitions, specialist lectures and workshops, and it cooperates with many cultural and educational institutes in Plzeň and the Plzeň region.

In its implementation of automation of library processes, the Library is using the ALEPH system. Its users have many databases and multimedia materials at their disposal in specialised reading rooms.

The following libraries are part of the State Research Library in Plzeň:

. Library for the Visually Impaired (Jagellon Street)

. Austrian Library

. German Library of the Goethe-Institut in a separate building (12, Square of the Republic, Plzeň)

. English Library

Karlovy Vary Region

Karlovy Vary Regional Library

https://www.knihovna.kvary.cz

This library came into existence in May 2002 when the then District Library of Karlovy Vary was promoted to a Regional Library. As a result, it is handicapped in comparison with regional libraries of long-established administrative regions due to the insufficient size of its premises, library holdings and staffing. The library also serves as a municipal library. In 2002, the regional administration decided that former military barracks be converted into a new regional library. The end of the reconstruction is planned for November 2005. The services offered by this regional library include press monitoring. In 2004 it introduced a new Aleph automated system, making it possible to extend the scope of its on-line services. The Regional Library of Karlovy Vary is also an accredited testing centre for ECDL (an internationally recognized standard method for the assessment of digital literacy).

Ústí nad Labem Region

North Bohemia Research Library in Ústí nad Labem

https://www.svkul.cz

The North Bohemian Research Library at Ústí nad Labem, founded in 1945 is at present the second largest library in the North of Bohemia as to its holdings, as well as services. It has been the recipient of regional deposit copies since 1979, and a producer of regional periodicals' bibliography since the late 1960s (in electronic format since 1991). Its repository houses more than 793,000 books, paperbacks, bound periodicals, standards, musical scores, gramophone records, compact disks, audio cassettes, diskettes and CD-ROMs. In its acquisition policy, it has been focusing on encyclopaedias, dictionaries, geographical guidebooks and maps, and books on architecture, arts and the environment. The Library uses the T Series automated system. At its premises at 49 Velká hradební Street and its new wing built there in 1996 the library offers research library services, while public municipal library services are available on its premises at 3 W. Churchill Street and also at its seven branches in different parts of the city.

Liberec Region

Liberec Research Library

https://www.svkli.cz

The Research Library in Liberec is a comprehensive public library that also functions as a research, municipal and regional library.

Its Library collections comprise the entire production since 1954 of: books, periodicals, standards, descriptions of inventions, maps, gramophone records, audio cassettes, microfiches, CDs and CD-ROMs. The Library uses the Advanced Rapid Library system for the automation of its library processes.

Special collections:

Germanica of the Czech Lands (Sudetica) - a unique collection of German literature associated with Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia (part) by authors' domicile or by subject-matter and published in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Regional literature - documents relating to the Liberec region and the former administrative region of Northern Bohemia (encompassing the vicinity of the towns of

Česká Lípa, Semily, and Jablonec nad Nisou).

Austriaca - a collection of Austrian literature (Austrian Library Department).

Glass and textile - documents relating to the traditional industries in northern Bohemia.

Hradec Králové Region

Hradec Králové Study and Research Library

https://www.svkhk.cz

The Study and Research Library at Hradec Králové is a comprehensive library with special emphasis on the building of a scientific literature collection. It provides the full scope of library services for the entire region. Originally a Municipal Study Library, it became the Study and Research Library on 4 November 1949. Its present collection of more than 1.2 million documents is available to over 6,900 users. The library has also about 4,000 early printed books (i.e. dating from 1500 - to 1800). They are mostly of Czech or German origin, some were published in east Bohemia, mainly at Hradec Králové. All library activities have been automated, and local area optical fibre networks have been set up and interlinked. The Library uses the KP-win platform for the automation of its library processes, it provides international interlibrary loan and reference services and publishes a library journal "U nás". A new library is under construction.

Pardubice Region

Pardubice Regional Library

https://www.knihovna-pardubice.cz

The new Pardubice Regional library was established in 2002 as a successor to the former district library, which in turn succeeded the original public local library in Pardubice founded in 1897. The Pardubice Regional library is a comprehensive library, collecting and lending books, journals and magazines, newspapers, maps, printed music, audio recordings, e-documents and other forms of information. Its non-fiction collections contain a large number of classical information sources (books and files) as well as modern electronic sources (electronic databases, CD-ROMs, Internet, on-line databases). The Library uses the KP-win platform for the automation of its library processes.

Vysočina Region

Vysočina Regional Library at Havlíčkův Brod

https://www.kkvysociny.cz

The original public library was established here in 1894. The present-day Regional Library of Vysočina at Havlíčkův Brod was inaugurated in 2002. It provides mainly lending and information services to its users. Its Leisure Time University offers life-long education opportunities. Apart from that, the Library organizes many events aimed at making its ativities widely known to the public. The Library also offers special services to users with disabilities. The Library has automated its library processes on the CLAVIUS system platform.

South Moravia Region

The Moravian Library at Brno

https://www.mzk.cz

The Moravian Library in Brno (MZK) is a comprehensive research library, specializing in social sciences, medicine, agriculture, pedagogy, technology and economics, founded in 1808. It keeps extensive collections of manuscripts, early printed books, Moravica (i.e. literature associated with Moravia by the author's domicile or by subject), and, since 1935 when it became the recipient of legal deposit copies, of complete domestic publisher production.

Its collection of 3.8 million volumes grows annually by 41,000 volumes, 5,400 of which are periodicals.

The Library uses the ALEPH system for the automation of its library processes, it provides international interlibrary loan and reference services, and it publishes library quarterly journal Duha (Rainbow).

The construction of a new library building started in 1998 and was completed in 2001. The new premises have made it possible to merge the three constituent special libraries into a single research public library. The new library has three general reading rooms (social sciences, natural sciences and technical sciences) and four specialised reading rooms (for old books, periodicals, AV-media and commercial information). The Moravian Library also houses the Music Library, English Library, Austrian Library, German Library and the American Library: Info USA Brno.

Olomouc Region

Olomouc Research Library

https://www.vkol.cz

The Research Library in Olomouc is the second oldest and the third largest library of its type in the Czech Republic. It was founded in 1566 by the Jesuit Order and then brought into pubic ownership in the late 18th century. At present, the Library has the status of a regional library and, by virtue of its development, has become a comprehensive research library accessible to the general public.

Its collections comprise over 1.8 million volumes. The library keeps extensive historical collections (manuscripts, incunabula, early printed books) and is the recipient of legal deposit copies (since 1807 from Moravia and part of Silesia and from Slovakia from 1947 to 1992). The Library has had its legal deposit copy authorization for the whole country since 1996. Because over 50 per cent of its users are students and profes sors of Palacký University in Olomouc, the Library focuses its acquisitions on the fields of study at the individual faculties (social, natural and medical sciences in particular) while retaining its comprehensive library character. Since the 1960s, the Library has been running international interlibrary loan and reference services, and it has been acting as the coordinator of the North Moraviaregional bibliography and publisher of the quarterly journal Krok (Step).

The Research Library in Olomouc is a modern library with electronic data processing and automated cir culation on the Aleph system platform. Its users have access to internal and external databases and to the Internet.

Moravian-Silesian Region

Moravian-Silesian Research Library in Ostrava

https://www.svkos.cz

The Moravian-Silesian Research Library in Ostrava was founded in 1951. A comprehensive library open to the general public, it provides services to individuals and institutions. In 1978 it became also an advisory and educational centre for the libraries of the rest of the Moravian-Silesian region.

At present it keeps over 900,000 items in its holdings and receives over 3,000 Czech and foreign periodicals. Its holdings include books, periodicals, standards, patent certificates, CD-ROMs and trade literature. An OPAC with several databases is available to the users. The traditional sources of bibliographic information have recently been supplemented with a regional database with information about important personalities, cultural events and ecological problems. The Library uses the T Series automated system. Preparations for the construction of a new library are underway.

Zlín Region

František Bartoš Regional Library at Zlín

https://www.kfbz.cz

Founded in 1905 as a public library, it became the Regional Library in 2002, named after František Baroš. Besides general library holdings, the Library also houses a regional centre of library, bibliographic and information services for public libraries of the Zlín region. The Library offers traditional library services, as well as information services and consultancy. All of its operations are fully automated, using the KP-win system .