About the Library
Library
In line with the Institute´s research mission, the concept of the library is that of a workplace with a special fund of publications on the Czech /Czechoslovak political, social, economic and cultural history since the 1930s until now and on the history of sciences.
The library systematically collects, processes and makes available Czech (and selectively also foreign) monographs and periodical publications in both printed and audiovisual forms on the history of the pre-Munich republic, Protectorate, period of the building of socialism, Communist regime 1948–1989, and post-November transformation. Attention is also paid to Czech-Slovak and Czech-German relations, Czech/Czechoslovak exile between 1939 and 1989, human rights, opposition movements and dissent, and minorities; the library also collects literature on issues of international relations (focusing particularly on the Cold War period) and European integration, general history of the world, issues of historiography, political science, philosophy and sociology, literary science and cultural heritage. The library continuously expands a fund of Slovak professional publications and makes it available to readers.
The publication fund, with over 50,000 volumes, contains, inter alia, a major collection of exile book and journal production. At the moment, the library subscribes for more than 200 Czech and foreign professional periodicals and yearbooks. All in all, there is over 800 titles of periodicals at a varying degree of completeness.
The Catalogue of the Library of the Institute is a part of the Union Catalogue of the Czech Academy of Sciences and also of the Union catalogue of the Czech Republic. The library cooperates with a number of domestic and foreign institutions of a similar orientation, mainly in the field of the exchange of publications, and participates in the Uniform Information Gateway project.
Contact:
Mgr. Gabriela Golasová
E-mail: golasova@usd.cas.cz
Phone: +420 257 286 365
Reading Room
The library reading room open to the public offers current issues of domestic and foreign journals, encyclopedic documents, dictionaries, bibliographies, and the complete production of the Institute. It also offers a wi-fi connection at nine workstations.
Opening hours for the public: Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, 9.00–16.30
Contact:
Eliška Trávníčková
E-mail: studovna@usd.cas.cz
Phone: +420 257 286 361
Bibliographic section
The bibliographic section keeps track of bibliography since 1918 until now in an interdisciplinary context, particularly in relation to social science disciplines. It administers two on-line databases which it fills with records of the current production as well as with entries of older Czech and foreign titles.
The database of articles contains systematically excerpted and analytically described Czech and foreign professional journals, collective monographs and almanacs. The annual increment is roughly 3,000 records, and the database currently contains almost 60,000 entries.
The selected bibliography database contains records pertaining to Czech and foreign publications, articles and chapters since 2010, and selectively also older ones. The annual increment is roughly 3,500 records, and the database currently contains almost 16,000 entries. It is necessary to note that the database also contains records of titles which the library physically does not possess.
In the past, the Institute has published several personal and thematically arranged bibliographies (e.g. on the Prague Spring, samizdat, withdrawal of Soviet troops etc.) and also three cumulative bibliographies (1918–1995, 1995–1999, 1999–2004) (see the electronic publications).
Contact:
Eva Štěpánová
E-mail: stepanova@usd.cas.cz
Phone: +420 257 286 345